Hell hath no fury
by Narutoscreed
Summary: Revenge fic:Dark:Powerful Harry. When Harry defeats Voldemort he isn't shocked to end up in Azkaban, he is when Ron brings in Hermione and rapes her in the cell next to his. The anger he can't feel for himself he can for his friends. H/Hr eventually
1. Chapter 1

He watched the power swirl around his hands as he focused on directing it

Hell hath no fury.

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: It is not my intention to impinge on anyones rights to ownership of the story this one is based upon. No money has been made, this is merely an act of fandom.

A/N People didn't seem to respond to my other story, 'The Great Escape' so I decided to write something else. I'm still working on that story but it's been placed on a backburner. I apologise for anyone who was really interested in it but that's just the way I am. I figure that I spend ten or twenty hours a week writing and proof-reading my work. So ask yourself, 'Is it too much to ask for a couple of minutes of your time to post a review?' It's not that I expect everyone to review, I don't, it'd just be nice to know what people think of my work. When people don't respond then I think there's something wrong with what I wrote and I get discouraged.

/ Azkaban, isolation cells \

He watched the power swirl around his hands as he focused on directing it. It boiled in like a heat-wave which was close to what was actually happening as he fed power into the rune array, being careful to make sure none of it was wasted. It was hard enough doing this without all the handicaps they'd placed on him but if he slipped now he'd have wasted the last five weeks of preparation.

One might ask just why he was trying to destroy the nice gift the Ministry of Magic had given him but for that he'd have to go back to the day he'd defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort. The day he'd finally put paid to the maniacal monster that had plagued the magical world for nearly forty years. It hadn't been an easy task and there were many people who wouldn't be around to enjoy the victory celebrations, not least of all Voldemort himself. Then again he had a good excuse having caught a bad case of dead which probably could have been cured if Harry and his friends hadn't gone around destroying those pesky little Horcruxes.

The fight itself had seemed a little anti-climactic when he'd finished it, he'd thought that a Dark Lord that had scared the magical world would have been a bit harder to defeat, but then he really shouldn't have been surprised what with all the good press the Prophet had given him over the years. It had felt like the snakelike man had come to depend on his reputation and hadn't sought to extend his power any further

No one had been more shocked than Harry when after a duel that had lasted for just under ten minutes he'd managed to get a reductor through the older wizards shield. Probably not as shocked as Voldemort had been but then he'd probably began to buy his own press that he was invincible. It had helped that he didn't know that his back-up plan was no longer an option what with the death of Nagini sometime in the last hour you could forgive the evil bastard for not knowing that his plans for resurrection had been foiled. Harry had stood over the rapidly cooling corpse and made sure of the monster by smearing his head across the flagstones of Hogwarts great-hall. That's when the previous three hours of battle had caught up with the teen and his injuries had caused him to collapse to his knees.

He'd hardly protested when he'd been grabbed and the auror had placed these lovely bracelets on his wrists, hadn't even known what they were until after they'd wrested his wand from his hand. Hadn't even read him his rights, but then again he'd seen the way justice worked in this world and known that he had no rights. Not when they put the magic suppressors on him, not when they'd secured his hands behind his back and marched him at wand-point past all of the stunned people who'd fought alongside him and forced him to the minimum safe distance that one could apparate away from Hogwarts and directly to the docks from whence the ferry for Azkaban left. Oh yes he'd seen this kind of justice before, they'd put him away for the good of the people or so they'd told him.

He'd taken out their trash and in the process he'd become their trash, oh it was a fine world he'd spent the majority of his life preparing to defend. Sixteen incredibly long and harrowing years being honed as a weapon, and this was all the thanks he could expect from them. He hadn't been surprised, not really. You see the purebloods might have lost the battle but they controlled just about everything, and that was one thing they couldn't allow to change. Harry had represented change and they'd known it. All he'd have to have done if they'd left things alone was to ask and the public would have made him Minister of Magic in a second. With his good friends behind him he would have done so much to change the way the magical world ran that it would have been unrecognisable in a decade, especially with friends like Hermione to drive him onwards.

So they'd stacked the deck like they were wont to do and pushed him into a magic suppressing cell deep in the bowels of the wizarding prison, not even bothering to remove the manacles thus leaving him doubly suppressed. The only good thing about his situation was that the Ministry hadn't been able to round up the last of the Dementors and so he hadn't been subjected to their special kind of attention. Like he'd said he hadn't been surprised by his treatment and with the way he'd been raised he'd been prepared to let things stand, if they'd left them as they were but they couldn't do that. It'd been two weeks after he'd been brought in and the only way he'd known that, was that he'd timed the interval between the light going on in his cell one day and extrapolated from there how long he'd been here. Two weeks without seeing a soul, not even the person that brought his meal each day and then there'd been a rattle of keys off in the distance that had brought him to the window in his cell door to see what was happening. He'd watched stunned as two aurors had dragged an unconscious Fred Weasley into a cell just along the corridor before they'd slammed it shut and stomped away. He'd often wondered what Fred had done to warrant putting him in here but so far all of his calls to that cell had been ignored. He didn't even know if he was alive or how extensive the damage was to his friend.

Even after that he'd only been angry. How could they treat one of his friends like that, one who'd lost his twin in the final battle? That had been the beginning of a slow burn in his chest as the anger began to flare, but at that point it had been undirected, lacking a focus for his ire. That had come in his fourth week in here.

Harry took a deep breath as he remembered what had been driving him ever since. He'd given up on getting a reaction from his friend and was just counting the days when he'd heard that sound once more and the guarded door at the end of the corridor had been opened once more. He'd wondered who it was this time, hoping it was some heinous criminal and not another of his friends. He'd been sadly disappointed when he'd seen not one but two of his friends being escorted into the cell block. At first he'd been hoping that they were merely here to visit him but an ungentle shove had sent Hermione sprawling. That'd been shocking enough, but it was the fact that Ron was the one to pull her to her feet that had been the real shock. He wasn't gentle about it either and Harry could see something that he'd only seen a few hints of before in his friends face. It was as if Ron was angry at the world and he'd chosen to focus on Hermione as the perpetrator of all the injustices within it. Then again he'd done the same thing to Harry a few times over the years but he'd never seen this level of hate before. He'd pushed her into the cell right next to Harry's before he turned to the auror escort and told them he'd be with them in a little while. Harry had wondered what that was about but it hadn't taken long for him to find out.

He'd jumped when he'd heard the first blow, and cringed when he heard Hermione make the first sound she had since he'd first caught sight of her. It was a yell of pain that was quickly followed by more as Ron showed her just how angry he really was. He still shrank when he remembered her pleading with him to stop, the timbre of which changed after a couple of minutes as she pled with him not to 'Do it'. When Ron left the cell ten minutes later Harry could hear her weeping as the red-head straightened his clothes. Now Harry wasn't exactly well versed in what went on between the sexes but you couldn't live in a co-ed boarding school and not get a crash course in human behaviour. He also knew enough to know that Hermione hadn't been a willing participant and that's when Harry's anger had finally ignited.

Ron had smirked as he noticed Harry watching him through the bars on his cell and decided to stroll over.

"What's wrong Harry? Sad you weren't her first or is it that I'll be her last? Not that you were going to get a chance from where you are," the red-head sneered as he moved within reach of Harry's hand's.

"You sick fucking animal!" Harry roared as he reached through the bars with his right hand only to watch as Ron took a half step back. The smirk on his face had grown as he'd grabbed Harry's wrist and gave a viscous twist that had smashed the arm into the bars, pushing further he'd been satisfied when he heard a snapping sound as the bone gave.

"She shouldn't have supported you, you know?" he said almost conversationally as he shook Harry's broken arm again, "Should have left well enough alone, but the stupid bitch never did know when to keep her mouth shut. 'Harry didn't do anything'," he mimicked sarcastically, "'Harry saved you all', well fuck you Harry. For once the Ministry got it right, you're exactly where you deserve to be…" He was so caught up in speaking that he missed it when Harry's other arm came through the bars with all his seeker wrought speed and reflexes. Ron's nose had made a very satisfying sound as it met the wrought iron bar with a sickening crunch, not for Harry though, he was too busy wrapping his hand in Ron's long hair and using it as leverage to smash his one time friends face into the door to his cell. He'd gotten in four or five good blows when he'd finally managed to pull a fistful of Ron's hair out by the roots and the red-head had been able to stumble back out of range clutching his mangled nose.

The gangly teen had been about to retaliate when he'd finally met Harry's eyes and been shocked at what he'd seen there. He'd never seen such a look of malice on the face of anyone, not even Voldemort had a look like that. The ex-Dark Lord had been viscous but he'd been an urbane and cultured killer never really feeling anything at all for any of his victims, they were just a means to an end. The only time he'd ever seen anything like it was when he'd seen Bellatrix Lestrange up close, but then she'd been crazy. Harry wasn't crazy though, he could see it in the depths of those eyes. This was a calculating fury that he'd never seen on Harry's face before and he gave thanks that a sturdy door was between the two as he took another step back under the blast-furnace gaze.

"They were right, you belong where you are…You're an animal Harry. You hear me?" It probably would have sounded stronger if he hadn't been backing away in fear.

"You know something Ron, old buddy, old pal? When I get out of here I'm going to enjoy killing you for the things you've done. Mark my words, I'm going to make you pay in ways you're not going to have long to regret," Harry hissed in his anger. Having his anger pass through the normal hot diffuse state that he'd known as a sullen teen rotting at Privet Drive, it had settled into a cold seething place that allowed him to think about what he'd do next. Not that there'd been much that he could do at that time except watch Ron's faltering arrogance begin to fade. Sure it didn't last long before Ron was back to his normal self but it was satisfying nonetheless.

"Like there's anything you can do. You might not have noticed this since it probably feels like home to you, but you're in a prison that no one has escaped from before," he finished triumphantly before turning away and beginning to stalk towards the end of the corridor intending to leave on that parting shot, but Harry wasn't finished.

"One name Ron, Sirius Black," he had the satisfaction of watching Ron's shoulders stiffen, "Mark my words Ron, I'm coming for you. There's no place on this stinking god forsaken world that you can escape to, I'm coming…." He didn't know or care that half of what he'd said was in parsletongue he just knew it had had the desired effect and sent Ron scurrying for safety away from here like the rat he'd proven himself to be. He wondered if Molly knew about her sons activities, or if she approved. Now wouldn't that be something to boast about, she now had a son who'd been head boy, another who'd been quidditch captain, Percy who'd been a prefect and now she could add Ron the rapist. Oh yes she had so many sons to be proud of.

Those threats he'd made had been big words five weeks ago, but he'd meant them, every one of them. He'd tried to talk to Hermione but like Fred she wasn't answering any questions. He couldn't even begin to understand what kind of private hell she was living in and he'd hoped that he could help her in some way but she wouldn't talk. He knew she was still alive though since he could hear her sobbing every now and again.

For the first day after his confrontation he'd wondered just how he was going to deliver on his threats. One thing he knew though was that he needed magic to get out of here and he was being suppressed twice over. In trying to overcome the first layer of suppression he'd noted almost in passing that he could still move his magic internally just fine, he'd used it to accelerate his healing of the broken bone in his arm, a feat that took three days without Skele-grow to speed the process up. Once he'd managed that he'd taken to pushing his magic as far as it could go, noting how the manacles sucked the magic into themselves. Taking care to watch the process with his mage-sight he'd seen that it managed to dampen his power but not only that but it neutralized the purpose of the magic so that even if there was anything left over it wasn't focused enough to do anything with. He'd come to the conclusion after nearly a week of testing that the only way to get rid of them would be to overload them.

Three hours later he'd passed out from lack of magic in his system but he didn't let that deter him. After sleeping he tried again, and again, not stopping each time till unconsciousness beckoned. He had nothing else to do now and he was bound and determined that he was not going to be stopped by some little trinket. What followed was four weeks of the most intense magical focusing that Harry had ever undertaken. Now it took five hours for him to totally drain his magical core, and he was sure that he could feel the metal begin to warm up. While he was recovering he'd tried to discover anything else that might aid him in his bi to escape confinement. It was a pity that he wasn't an animagus like his god-father had been , but that had led him to another thought to explore.

He'd never really been tested for any gifts, other than the few he knew about such as his ability to talk to snakes but there was one thing that he remembered discussing with one of his friends before that final battle. In fact she'd promised to help him see how far he could take his ability once the battle for their survival was done with. That hadn't turned out to be a possibility at the time but there was nothing stopping him from attempting it himself. She'd given him all the clues he needed to work it out himself. So he'd waited until he was exhausted and then attempted it, just something simple to begin with, something he knew he'd done before. She'd told him that it took almost no power being an intrinsic part of who she was, it was like breathing to her and that's the way she thought it should feel for him as well. It was a matter of believing that things would happen and all he had to do was focus on what he wanted to happen. Even with that to guide him it had taken nearly three weeks to make a minor breakthrough, but that had been as far as he'd gotten so far. His hair had been long enough that he couldn't see through his fringe but hat hadn't mattered because he'd managed to shorten it again after only another day and a half of trying. His ability was a far cry from Nymphadora Tonk's casual displays of meta-morphing prowess but he was getting better.

That wasn't going to help him get out of here any quicker though since he couldn't do anything more substantial such as thinning his wrists enough to pull them off. So that left his original plan, but it wasn't paying off either.. Sure he was getting more powerful but it wasn't enough. So he watched the magic boil into the magical artefacts and sighed in frustration, if only he could condense his power even further. That's when he heard a tiny voice inside his head make a suggestion. He'd done this before when he needed to make something incredibly hard seem easy. That was probably why it took longer for him to access his inner Hermione, he wasn't attempting hard here; he was attempting something that was supposedly impossible. Like the adverts said, hard had become easy for him, the impossible took just a little bit longer. What ever the case may be he was willing to give it a try as he watched the magic around one of his hands disappear as he stopped pushing magic through that channel.

Instead he focused what he was saving and began to strengthen the link with his left hand as he forced the extra he'd freed up into the task. Yep, that had an effect, he could feel the metal become noticeably warmer, one might even say hot. Hot enough that his wrist began to turn red at the extended contact, enough that he had to stop and let things settle, but it gave him another idea of how to do this. For the moment he'd wait and think of all the things he was going to do once he got out of her, of course there was no way he was going to leave his friends in here so he'd have to make plans for that as well. Having Hermione on his side would be definite help as would Fred, they were two of the most clever individuals he'd known and if he guessed right then they'd be some of the few people who'd support him. He didn't need to be a seer to know what was going on outside while he was stuck in here, the papers would be having a field day with his supposedly turning to the dark side, he'd had plenty of experience with the magical worlds almost sheep like response to what was printed in that rag.

That brought him to thinking about the people he thought might support him and winced when he found that it was distressingly short. Luna and Neville were possibilities and maybe some of the Hufflepuffs who'd been a part of the DA in his fifth year. He didn't think that Susan Bones would be a part of any conspiracy to get rid of him. Her aunt would have bee a nice addition as well if she'd survived Voldemort's attack, or then again he'd only believed that Voldemort was responsible, there was another possibility that had reared its ugly head and that was that Rufus Scrimgour had been the one to leak the information of her whereabouts and had let the Dark Lord handle it from there. He didn't want to believe it but from what he'd seen so far politics did something to the people who played that game.

One thing he knew was that Rufus was on his list of people who were enemies. He couldn't prove the mans part in the death of Amelia Bones but he could in the fact that he was currently in a cell without a trial. It seemed it was becoming a bit of a family tradition. Hopefully he could make the escaping a family tradition too, only he wasn't willing to wait for twelve or thirteen years to do it. Luckily it would only take him three hours to recharge his reserves and then he'd make his next attempt, though this time he'd use some of it internally to mitigate the heat.

A short time later he had to stifle the urge to give off a primeval scram of triumph as he watched the rune he'd been feeding power into catch fire like a burning nub of magnesium as it burned out completely. He used the next few seconds to cut the wrest of the rapidly cooling metal from his wrist before turning his attention to the other manacle. That one didn't take anywhere near as long since they were only designed to handle magic from within whatever limb they happened to be attached too. It wouldn't do to have an artefact within the prison that would negate their own wards after all.

The next order of business was to get out of the cell he was currently in. Not that that would be hard, the suppressing wards on the actual cell had been designed to deal with the average wizard or witch. They didn't make allowances for strong wandless magic. That seemed to be the norm for wizardkind they always tended to cater to the norm rather than the exception. It took Harry fifteen seconds to locate and met the rune stone that powered the suppression wards that were aimed at wand focused magic. The problem was that Harry was now stronger without a wand than he'd ever been with one. Harry mused that if he gained that much after only a few weeks that it might be valuable to have Hermione create an even stronger version so that he could overcome them too. It didn't even matter if he could overcome them either since he'd get stronger regardless and he was pretty sure he could convince her to remove them once he was finished for the day, or even put a release phrase into them for emergencies, but that all depended on them being able to get out of here. Harry was hoping that normal wizarding arrogance would prevail and that they actually believed that their prison was as un-escapable as they thought it was. You'd think they'd have learned after Sirius had escaped but he was counting on the usual bind-spots that allowed them to ignore uncomfortable truths until their noses were ground into their mistakes.

Slumping back onto the hard wooden board that had been his bed for nearly ten weeks Harry allowed his reserves to recharge one more time. He had a feeling that as soon as he opened his cell door that all hell was going to break loose and he wanted to be ready for it, no, he would be ready for it. That way if it didn't eventuate he could be happy that it was so and if it did then he'd at least be prepared for the worst. An hour later he faced the door and began to force his magic into it, watching with pleasure as the metal began to low like water where it pooled on the flor. Forming it into a sphere he sent it rolling away down the empty stretch of corridor till it was beyond Freds cell where he made it morph into a wall of iron that blocked anyone coming to interfere. Hermione's door joined it a moment later as did the cell door opposite.

Entering the cell his friend was confined to Harry stopped…..

/ To be continued? \

A/N – Alright peoples, it's time to figure out if this story continues, I sure hope it does but that depends on reader response. I don't see any reason to waste time writing a story that no wants to read, other than for my own pleasure. Let me know what you think, PM me, review, send me e-mails, it doesn't matter how but let me know what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

Pitiful, it was the only word he could think of to describe what he was seeing

Hell hath no fury

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: See chapter 1 for full disclaimer. You don't see professional writers putting these suckers at the beginning of each chapter. No, they put necessary disclaimers at the front of the book and know that will legally protect them.

A/N: Your response has been fantastic, sure hope it continues. I'd like to thank everyone who's taken a gander at my work and especially those who took the time to review. You know who you are.

/ Hermione's cell – Azkaban \

Pitiful, it was the only word he could think of to describe what he was seeing. Not that he'd give her his pity, she deserved so much more for her friendship over the years. The one thing she truly needed he hadn't been able to give, not then but the future was a whole different business. Nothing like this would ever happen to her again, it was a vow he'd die to keep. No it was a vow he'd kill to keep, and there would be blood.

She wasn't even aware of her surroundings, the door to her cell had left its moorings with a metallic screech that should have woken the dead but she didn't move. If he wasn't using mage-sight he might believe that her injuries had been worse than they were and that she'd succumbed, not that they weren't bad enough. Four broken ribs that were healing despite the fact she didn't seem to have eaten, for how long he didn't know but his meal had 'arrived' at what he thought of as mid-day and it was getting pretty close to lights out when the food tray would vanish whether she ate or not. The ribs didn't worry him overmuch, she was stationary and had been so for long enough for them to begin to knit. What concerned him was the fact that there was still bruising on her face after nearly five weeks.

Harry swore as he upped the amount of pain he was going to inflict, he'd told Ron he wouldn't have long to regret his actions of that day but now….now the bastard would believe all the demons of hell were out to get him. Harry paused for a moment as he ran that thought by one more time, well maybe not all the demons but he was pretty sure he could find something for Ron.

Getting closer revealed more detail to his magical scan and he wished to hell he didn't know what they meant but he'd spent so much time in the infirmary over the years that he'd taken an interest in healing practices despite himself. It was more a case of self-preservation, though he'd only really focused on its application after the Department of Mysteries debacle.

Another step brought her first reaction. Harry almost sighed in relief, he'd been worried she was catatonic. It angered him that her only reaction was to try and cower away from him, gone was the vivacious woman that had kept their trio grounded, gone was the snippy sense of humour he'd come to appreciate even as he groaned at her driven nature. No, he'd been right with his first assessment, she didn't need pity she needed a cause, and he was going to give her one.

"Hermione? It's me Harry," he felt foolish for even saying it but didn't know how aware she was of her surrounding. He couldn't believe that was his voice either, he sounded harsh and scratchy to his own ears but then he hadn't had reason to speak for weeks now so it wasn't surprising. At least she'd stopped sidling away from him, she seemed to be listening to him as he softly crooned soothing sounds in the hope that she'd relax. "Look at me Hermione, come on just a peek. I want to help you, will you let me help you? Please Hermione," his voice broke once more as he got close enough to get his first really good look at her. The only term that described her condition was emaciated, from what he could tell she was barely taking in enough water to stay alive let alone food. It made his blood boil, he wanted to go out and kill something.

Taking a deep breath and then another he sought to centre himself in the moment. Hermione needed him more than he needed to hunt Ron down and kill him like a rabid dog. He needed to be here for her, there'd be time enough for the other later, he'd make time if he had to. He was within touching distance but afraid to touch her, afraid of her reaction, afraid he might hurt her more than she already was.

He could see that it'd been a totally one sided affair as well, give her a wand, one on one against anyone and he'd lay money on Hermione. It wasn't her power but rather her knowledge of spellcraft and her imaginative use of it once she'd gotten over her 'by the book' years. She was the match of anyone in the Order of the Phoenix. Here she didn't have magic, no wand, she'd been forced to rely on her physical strength and while she was quite strong she'd been no match for Ron's 6'3" height or the fact that he outmassed her a good forty five kilos. That and he was an athlete gave him an edge that no amount of skill would overcome unless matched. Harry certainly wouldn't want to go up against him without his magic, the guy had grown into a monster over the years, they'd just neve seen anything but the physical changes.

Beginning to kneel down he was startled when she suddenly jerked her head towards him, it wasn't the movement it was the hollow look in her eyes. A look he'd seen a few times in his life when he'd looked in the mirror, but not one he'd ever hoped to see in anyone else's eyes especially not a friends. The level of betrayal she must have felt when Ron turned on her like that boggled his mind, they had been just starting their budding relationship, and he'd admit that it'd been rocky from the get go but they'd been the last to know that they were meant to be. Now he wished he'd been selfish and taken what he wanted, her pain might not be less in the physical sense but the betrayal of her first love wouldn't have done such a number on her if he had. He'd given up on her and set his sights on Ginny instead, now there was a relationship that he just knew wasn't going to work. Apart from all that potion nonsense when someone had jokingly mentioned that she must have used Amortentia on him, he just couldn't see her standing aside and watching him kill one of her brothers.

Well that was tough because when he got out of here he was going to burn the world down around their ears, everyone who believed he deserve to be in here. Well he was going to show them the difference between what they thought was dark and what he thought was dark.

Reaching out to her he spoke again, "Hermione, it's Harry, I want to help you. Will you let me help you?" he was so close now he was almost brushing her skin, god he wanted to crush her to him and never let her get hurt again, but he could feel how fragile the situation was, how fragile she was. If he made a mistake now there'd be no going back, no 'do overs' and nothing left to fix. He wished he'd been able to get to her, help her sooner and then maybe she wouldn't have had too much time to think about what had happened to her. Five weeks alone and in pain had done a number on her and he wasn't willing to leave it to his luck to help him fix it.

He held his breath waiting some kind of response and had to restrain himself from whooping in delight when a slow blink of her eyes brought a semblance of sanity back to their depths.

"H-H-Harry?" the querulous murmur sounded nothing like he normal self, and it wasn't a statement but a question. As if she didn't trust the evidence of her own eyes. A second later her eyes widened further as she noticed how close he was to touching her. "No! Don't touch me! Don't look at me!" her voice sounded as bad as his own, as a shrill note of panic entered her and she shrank back further as if she wanted to sink through the stone behind her and hide. Like she had done something terrible and there wasn't anyway he could want to have anything to do with her. Harry felt his heart break a little more as he closed the distance and caught her in his arms as gently as he could. She whirled towards him and attempted to lash out at him but he was too close to her and she was too weak to be effective. The terror was back in her face, 'Oh gods, she thinks I'm going to do what he did,' the realization washed over him and left a sick feeling in his stomach.

"Shhhh, shhhhh, it'll be alright. I'm here now Hermione," he sought to hold her as still as possible, he didn't know how but he knew she needed this even if she didn't know she did. Not to be held, but to know that she could trust someone to just hold her and nothing more. If he was reading her right then her condition made a little more sense to him, she was punishing herself. She was acting as if she'd done something wrong that she needed to be punished for like it was all her fault, "I'm just going to hold you….just like this…..nothing else, I promise…Shhhhhh, shhhhhh."

She continued to try and struggle against him for a couple of minutes but she either finally realized that he wasn't going to do anything to her or she was simply too exhausted to fight him anymore. With the exhaustion came the breaking of the barriers she'd built up, it started with a hitch to her breathing, then a slight hiccup and suddenly she was clutching at him with a desperation that he'd never seen before. Tears streamed from her eyes as she attempted to burrow into him hoping against hope that he would protect her, that he would save her. That he could save her. Harry held onto her shaking body as she cried into his chest, no longer a grown woman but a frightened child seeking shelter and safety. The problem was the things she needed shelter from were within her own mind.

He couldn't do anything to help her with that, not even an obliviation spell since he simply didn't have the know how. One thing he knew he could do was attempt to use his magic to make her more comfortable, as he sent tendrils of magic into her he mended the more serious damage such as her broken collar bone and her ribs. Her nose was a little harder since it had five weeks of healing in the wrong spot, the only way he knew of to heal it was to re-break it and then use an episkey to set it properly and begin the healing anew, but he knew that now wasn't the time to do something like that. The problem was that if he left it too much longer then it would be doubly painful when she did get it fixed. He was puzzled for a moment when he felt a slight drain on his magic as he thought about what he needed to have happen, a puzzlement that was eclipsed when he watched the skin that covered her nose flow like water. A moment later her nose was as straight as it had ever been and from her lack of reaction he didn't even think she'd felt a thing.

Searching with his magic he sought out other problems that he could help her with and wasn't as surprised when he felt his magic draining at irregular intervals. Luckily she didn't feel a thing even when his magic caused her gums to split so he could regrow the two front teeth that she'd lost. She was going to hate him when she recovered enough emotionally to find out what he'd just done, and she took a potion especially to fix them. The magic didn't care about cosmetic changes though, it was working off her genetic information and it told the magic that she had buck teeth. Oh was she ever going to be pissed.

How long it took to fix everything he had no idea but when he returned to his surrounding again he discovered that Hermione had fallen into a fitful slumber. In a way he was thankful for that since it'd make his job easier, as he laid her down upon the bunk that was the only 'furniture' in the room. He used more magic to clean her and her clothes as she breathed easier than she had been and her sleep deepened as she was comfortable for the first time in weeks. The other reason he was thankful was that she wasn't in any fit state to get out of here under her own steam. He had plans for that though, he'd studied in the hope that he'd someday be able to become an animagus, something that he hadn't succeeded in doing so far but he wasn't ready to give up. That didn't mean he hadn't improved his transfiguration skills though and he'd found out that he had his fathers knack for it as well, often making difficult things seem simple. Human to animal was the hardest thing he'd done so far and that was how he was hoping to get both Fred and Hermione out of this hell hole.

"Forgive me Hermione," he murmured softly so as not to disturb her sleep as he reached out. His hand so close to her that the brief flash of light that indicated his attempt at a wandless stunner had worked went almost unnoticeable. Then he set to work, transforming a willing magical person was the easiest way to do this followed closely by willing muggle. Unwilling or unconscious on the other hand made things difficult on a whole different level, for one he couldn't expect any help form another source of magic, this was coming directly from his own reserves so he was kind of hoping he wasn't going to have to deal with any of the aurors that were currently guarding the prison in the stead of the Dementors.

He always found human transfiguration fascinating, especially when it was something like the 'Incredible bouncing ferret' not to mention as funny as all hell. There was nothing funny about this though as he watched Hermione shrink and begin to morph into a small animal. She was going to hate him even more if she ever found out he'd transfigured her into a mouse, she thought her teeth were big enough thankyou very much without being able to make actual jokes alluding to her form. The task took nearly five minutes to complete which was a personal best, not that he made turning his friends into animals a habit. Once he was sure everything had gone correctly he cast a stasis spell and an impervious spell on her to make sure that her condition didn't get any worse than it already was. He didn't know what he was going to have to do to get out of here or how long it'd take. The last thing he needed was for the stunner to wear off and have Hermione wake up in his pocket. There was also the fact that he could literally stand on her at this point and he wouldn't hurt her.

Picking up her body he found that his pocket just wasn't long enough to take her body the way it was he removed the stasis spell and curled her body into a small ball, just the way a mouse would normally sleep and then reapplied it she fit in there nicely the second time. But that brought up another point, the fact that he was as dirty and smelly as she'd been, and that his clothes were in worse condition than hers didn't go unnoticed, but hey that's what magic was for right? A few seconds of thought and a profligate amount of magic later and Harry was wearing a pure white robe and didn't smell offensive at a pace let alone the ten paces that he'd been before.

"That feels better," he sighed. It was good to feel clean, almost cleansing as he transmuted the layer of dead skin and sweat on his skin into oxygen. Stepping from the cell he quickly stepped back as a piercing spell penetrated the iron wall at the far end of the corridor and shot down the corridor, 'nice penetrating power' he thought as he watched the hole in his barrier boil closed, he thought he saw a brief flash of auror robes beyond it but couldn't be sure it was gone so quickly. Harry walked down the edge of the corridor and casually pulled the next two doors out of their frames and sent it to reinforce his barrier. All in all by the time he reached Fred's cell he'd added another six doors to it and now it barely rippled when struck by even the most powerful spells and he could hear them. A full powered confringo only caused the liquid metal to bulge towards him.

Harry peeked around the door frame to make sure he wasn't going to be surprised by his friend attacking him, it wouldn't do to be taken out of the game by his own side.

"Fred, you in there? It's Harry, I'm coming in," he stepped around the door frame and entered the cell, happy to let his defense take the brunt of the auror attack. They had plenty of time.

"Ah Harry my boy, do come in," Fred said trying to sound like Dumbledore, Harry wasn't buying it for a moment though for two reasons. One was that it had obviously cost the boy to even be sitting up. The second was that his eyes were dull with the pain that he was obviously feeling, that and the fresh blood at the corner of his mouth told Harry there was something seriously wrong.

"Hey Fred, how you doing?" He knew it was a stupid question as soon as he said it but it was a starting point.

"Oh I don't know. Though I have to admit I've felt better," he coughed and winced as it obviously caused him pain, "Heh, I don't think I'm meant to get out of here Harry, not alive anyway. It'll be good to see George again, wherever he is we'll raise some hell," a sad smile appeared on his lips as he thought about all the pranks they'd had planned to play, the ones they'd never get a chance to now.

"You know he isn't dead don't you?" Harry didn't know what prompted him to speak, he was just trying to save one of his few friends and it seemed like the thing to say.

"Bullshit Harry, saw him die with my own eyes, ain't no denying it," the raw emotion in his voice caught Harry by surprise. Not that it really should, but then again he'd never had siblings of his own so he wouldn't know.

"Yeah, I know, but as long as he lives here," he touched Fred's temple, "and here," he reached down and touched him over his heart, "then he's never really gone. All you have to do is channel your inner George and…." Harry trailed off at the introspective look on Fred's face.

"Bout time you git! What were you thinking shutting me out like that?" Harry whirled around in shock at the voice and sent out a reflexive wave of magic that banished everything in the space between him and the door. Luckily there was nothing there to hurt, or that could be hurt. Harry double blinked to clear his sight and make sure he was seeing what he thought he was.

"George?"

"The one and only. Well if you discount that other prat who cut me off and left me in limbo all this time. You know how hard I've been trying to get back here? Fred? Fred, are you listening to me?" George floated over to his brother and poked him with an ethereal finger, it wasn't really effective and he wasn't getting any response from Fred in any case. Harry wondered about the timing of the 'ghosts' appearance but after a little thought didn't really care if it was a true apparition or a manifestation of Fred's magic giving him what he needed to survive.

"Um, George? I think you broke him," Harry pointed out as they still hadn't had any reaction from the living Weasley brother.

"I think he was already broke Harry," the ghost said as he turned to him seriously, "The fuckers cast a confringo into the store as he was opening up for the day. You know joke shops and explosive spells really don't mix don't you? He was lucky the blast didn't kill him," the ghost growled out.

"Uh I thought you said you were in Limbo?"

"Yeah, you'd be amazed at how close Limbo really is. I could see everything Harry, Heaven, Hell and here. Heh, triple H. I just couldn't interact while he wasn't ready for me, and there's no way I'm going anywhere without him. He's my bro, and if we're going to Heaven or Hell we'll be storming the gates together." Harry was beginning to get the feeling that this wasn't a mere magical construct. For one Fred didn't seem to be at home right now and the apparition should have faded without something to guide it.

"Well I'm going to try to make that something that doesn't happen for a long time," Harry said fiercely as he extended his magic into Fred's body, just like he'd done for Hermione only the damage was far more extensive. Where her ribs were merely broken, Fred's had shattered from multiple impacts. He was surprised the prankster was still breathing let alone able to talk and move around. Giving magic free reign to do what was needed he watched a bone fragments literally dissolved leaving torn flesh behind that knitted together, the bones themselves began to rebuild as if he'd taken a stop gap movie of skele-grow in action. At the rate he was going he was going to have Fred fixed before too much longer. He'd know more once all the damage was repaired but that could wait for later, like when they had the peace to examine things more closely. From the sounds coming from the corridor he thought there might be a second contingent of aurors out there now. Not taking the time to figure out if Fred would be able to walk out of here under his own power he put the boy to sleep and worked the same magic he had on Hermione, making a matched set of mice. This time he remembered to make sure the mouse was in as compact a form as he could before putting him in stasis.

"What do you think you're doing Harry?" The ghost took an ineffectual swipe at Harry's head that had him ducking out of instinct.

"It's the easiest way for me to get them out of here, they're both too drained to do it themselves, and I've got to make a move soon or there'll be no getting out of here. They're starting to do more damage than my wall can absorb. Trouble is I need to know what's on the other side so that I can plan what to do. You know numbers, where they are, stuff like that."

"Say no more old chap, I'm your man. Be back in a jiffy," with that the ghost floated out into the corridor through the wall and vanished. Harry hoped he wasn't a magical construct because he was pretty sure the suppression wards would break up the magical matrix. Not wanting to wait for his return Harry followed him out in a more conventional manner. He was surprised when he met George coming back from his reconnoitre with a massive grin on his face.

"What's up with you?"

"Squealed like a little girl. Anyone would think they'd never seen a ghost before," George was visibly shaking with mirth now so Harry decided he might have to bring things back on course.

"So what's the go? How many of them are there?" and wasn't surprised when the ghost sobered almost immediately, the twins might have been inveterate pranksters but they'd been able defenders of the light when the need arose.

"There's ten or eleven of them, and they're all packed into a nice tight corridor. Looked pretty tired too, they must have had a late night or something."

"Yeah, or something," Harry winced as a particularly powerful spell smashed into his barrier. He winced further when he thought about going up against ten or more trained aurors, he certainly didn't like his chances if he dropped his barrier to attack. Sure his protego and Aegis shields could take a lot of damage he just wasn't sure it could take that much. He quickly thought up plans and discarded them almost as quickly. It seemed he wasn't the only one who was thinking about possible plans either. He was about to drop the barrier and go on the offensive when George spoke.

"Hold up Harry, I think I've got a plan……"

/ To be continued… \

A/N: Alright guys, I hope to have another chapter of this up soon. Your reaction certainly buoyed me up and I'm feeling real good about this story. Hope to see you all again in the next instalment.


	3. Chapter 3

"Correct me if I'm wrong mi amigo, but it seems you have all this liquid metal stuff just floating around

Hell hath no fury

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Nothings changed

A/N: Sorry this took longer to post than the other chapters but I got sidetracked by a story called "Harry's bond" by Mionefan. It's a really good Harry/Hermione romance and well worth a read. I apologise if some people who died in Deathly Hallows are alive in my story, I simply didn't like DH so choose to ignore its existence. I always thought it was too rushed and ended up feeling trite and too light weight for the material she was covering. Don't even get me started on the final battle and the 'Epilogue'. Like I said I'm not sure if Fred died or George died in the story and don't care.

As always I'd like to hear your opinions of my story so please review.

/ Corridor – Isolation block Azkaban \

"Correct me if I'm wrong mi amigo, but it seems you have all this liquid metal stuff just floating around."

"Yeah, go on," Harry prompted.

"Well it seems to me that you could shape it any old way you wanted. Couldn't you?"

"Well yeah," Harry stopped to ponder the idea and came to an obvious conclusion, "Problem is I really don't want to kill anyone."

"How about hurting them then? You shouldn't have any problems with that. Here's my suggestion…ssssss, sssss ,sss," George leant in and whispered in his ear, a totally redundant act since those beyond the 'wall' couldn't hear them anyway.

Harry smiled at Georges suggestion, it was a grim smile but it was the first time he'd even felt the urge for almost a year. He could really appreciate someone who would give him an idea like that and trust a quidditch player to think of it. What made it even better was that it wouldn't use any more of his magic than he was already using, now that was the kind of plan he could really enjoy.

Sending out his magic once more he used it to shape his weapons of mass destruction, he'd have high fived the ghost but that wouldn't really work what with the whole ethereal thing going on. George must have got the message though because his grin turned positively feral.

"Bludgers away captain!"

"Bludgers away," Harry agreed, wondering briefly if 'Captain' was a promotion from being the 'Boy who lived'. It sure felt like it though as he turned his defensive wall clear. It must have distracted the aurors from their imminent peril because they started throwing curses his way as soon as they thought the barrier had been removed. Those that were focusing on defending them sought to banish the 'bludgers' back his way, he'd give them credit he really would. They did try, it was just that Harry was stronger, not to mention angrier than they were, his intent to do them harm overwhelmed their need to defend themselves. He watched impassively as their joint spellfire splashed harmlessly off the almost invisible surface of his defences as the first of his projectiles smashed into the tightly packed auror teams.

They didn't stand a chance as the balls weighing nearly a hundred kilos a piece smashed into the unprepared police force and bowled them over or sent them flying through the air to crash into the walls. He could almost hear the sounds of dismay and pain as they were scattered by eight of them, the following four smashed into the ones who had only received glancing blows. It was total pandemonium as the bludgers struck the far wall with jarring force before bouncing back and mowing down anyone unlucky enough to have not received enough damage to put them out of the fight. Harry smirked at the thought, as if there'd actually been a fight. He really hoped that George was going to stick around if he could keep coming up with ideas like that.

That brought up another point, "Hey George?" he called the ghost who was watching the mayhem like it was a thing of beauty, not that Harry blamed him. He could enjoy it as well since he was pretty sure that they'd all survive the experience. Not that he was overly worried, they'd chosen their side in this so he wouldn't feel to bad about them reaping the repercussions.

"Yeah Harry?"

"Um tell me you're not tied to this place," he wasn't sure what the go was, but the only ghosts he'd ever seen were at Hogwarts and he'd never thought about whether they were tied to the buildings or whether they merely chose to stay there for eternity, or whatever fraction of eternity they chose to remain on this plane of existence.

"Heck no, if I'm tied to anything it'd be my brother. Where he goes I go," George said resolutely. Harry didn't doubt it for a moment, he'd seen the Weasley's when they chose to be obstinate and he wasn't sure he'd back the rest of creation against them in such a mood.

"That's good, hate to lose you so soon after getting you back," Harry paused as he sensed an impact with his shield and sighed in relief when he found that it was only his bludgers having completed their circuit of destruction they'd returned to the barrier to be reabsorbed. He couldn't believe how easy his magic was coming to him right now. He'd always had to wrestle it to make it do what he wanted before, but then he'd thought that's what they meant when they said, 'Intent, focus and willpower,' which were the key ingredients of any spell. He'd believed that willpower meant he'd have to force the magic to do what he wanted; he was beginning to think that maybe the professors had gotten it wrong. Perhaps they should have left it at intent and focus and then 'release' because that was all he was doing here. Focusing on the idea, intending the action and then letting the magic work the way he instinctively knew it should. He hated to admit it but Snape had been right all those years ago when he'd claimed you didn't need all of that 'Silly wand waving' to be a great wizard, in fact it seemed to only slow him down. He wondered for a moment what he'd have been capable of if he'd known back then what he was beginning to suspect now.

"Um, Harry? Hate to mention this old bean, but if we're going to leave we should probably start walking. You know one foot in front of the other and all that?"

"You're right," Harry muttered, "Let's go," he said in a much more decisive manner. The thing that worried him was that the aurors weren't as out of it as they might at first appear, but then he'd been trained by Allastor Moody before the old auror had bought the farm in that final battle. At least the old timer had gone out the way he would have wanted to, fighting the forces of darkness. Harry suppressed a snicker as he gingerly approached the fallen aurors. Opening his shield he cast a quick summoning spell and watched as only seven wands fell at his feet, that meant that there were at least another four wands out there, and probably more since most aurors carried a spare for situations just like this.

Mind you most of them looked much too injured to be able to do anything to hinder his egress from the cells. Harry wasn't willing to take the chance that one of them was playing possum though, he knew he had to be lucky until they were all well away from the prison while the guards only had to get lucky once and it would all be over. He had no intention of ever going back in that cell or any other for that matter. He'd had his share of prisons for a lifetime, in fact as far as he remembered he'd never really been free.

Quickly considering his options he decided that the fastest way to make sure that he wasn't blindsided was to make sure the aurors didn't have any kind of weapon at their disposal. He banished the first aurors robes so that they lay at his feet and quickly went through the pockets looking for anything useful, a couple of Galleons richer and an unidentified potion later and he hadn't found anything more useful so moved on to the next person.

"Oooh that's just ugly mate!" George exclaimed as the robe vanished from the next auror, "You could have at least done her next, give me something to look at while you look at the ugly bruiser."

"Give it a rest George, I need to concentrate," Harry partially turned away from the man and missed it completely as the big man surged towards him. He obviously wasn't one of the bright aurors since he hadn't figured out that Harry had a shield that could block just about anything thrown his way. Both Harry and George turned back towards him as he crashed head first into the wall of metal.

"Oh, he's gonna feel that when he wakes up," George quipped with a grin.

"Are they all stupid or something George? I mean they do realize I've got a really strong shield yeah?"

"Um, I don't know what to tell you Harry but consider this, they are working for the ministry."

"Hn, point. I suppose it comes with the territory." Harry decided to focus on his task and spent the next twenty minutes or so searching the people who'd tried to subdue him. He definitely came off the better in the deal with enough coinage to keep all three of them comfortably for a number of weeks. It might prove important if the Goblins had chosen not to protect the Potter and Black assets. Though why they'd change their tune after all these years he didn't know. He just knew that the purebloods were going to attempt to usurp his accounts, or anything else they thought they could get away with. They didn't understand that there would come an accounting, either that or they didn't believe that the rules of polite society applied to them.

"You ready to move George?" Harry asked as he finished bundling their supplies into one of the robes for ease of carrying.

"Yeah sure," George murmured as he gazed at the blonde Harry had stripped earlier, who knew that an auror would wear so little underneath her robe. Harry turned to get his attention again, "Come on George, we don't have time for that, besides you can't even blame hormones for ogling her like that. Mind you, nice rack," he commented as he began walking towards the steel security door.

"I miss it you know? Having a body I mean."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. He didn't know what it felt like to be a ghost but he remembered nearly headless Nicks death day party all those years ago. Even after five hundred years the ghost still sounded wistful about his lack of a body. No he couldn't understand it but he could empathise.

"Oh well, it's not like there's anything we can do about it. Unless you happen to know a really powerful necromancer?"

"Closest I came was Voldemort," Harry admitted. It wasn't like necromancers advertised their skills or something. The arts of the dead were some of the blackest arts out there and no one wanted anything to do with them, not legitimately anyway.

"Right, but this isn't getting us any closer to getting out of here. Tell you what, you wait here and I'll check what's on the other side of this door."

Harry began counting seconds as soon as George was out of sight, he got as far as forty when he had to put one of the aurors out again. He'd admit kicking them in the head was much more therapeutic than stunning them. What was even more therapeutic was the sight of the woman George had been perving on, he might not do anything else but look, but that was definitely going to cause him problems in the future. He'd never look at a pretty woman in robes the same way again. It wasn't so much imagining what they were wearing, it'd be more like imagining what they weren't wearing, or as in this case if they were wearing anything at all. Another point was he had a much better idea of what a naked woman looked like now. Not that he didn't have an idea before, it was just the specifics that had escaped him since he'd never actually gotten close to scoring with any of the fan-girls that had accosted him. Well it had been more that he hadn't wanted to….

"Erghh!" Harry whirled at the sound before him and felt his eyes widen in shock as he watched George stagger towards him holding his chest. "They got me Harry," he croaked as he stumbled and started to fall. Now it might be noted that trying to stop a ghost from falling over is a really stupid thing to do, not to mention unpleasant as their bodies passed through each other.

Harry's eyes narrowed with suspicion, "Hold on, you're a fucking ghost, how the hell'd they 'get' you?" he yelled as he turned to find a grinning George behind him.

"Got ya," George said as his grin widened further.

"You prat! That's it, the second we get out of here I'm getting Hermione to research exorcism rituals."

"Ah, come on Harry, it was just a joke. You wouldn't really exorcise me would you? I really couldn't help it when I noticed you noticing the blonde. It's just not fair, you've even got those hormone thingy's you mentioned earlier."

"Well you'll just have to use your imagination," Harry smirked.

"I'd rather have the equipment thanks."

"Ew, too much information Forge. So what's out there?" Harry asked trying desperately to change the conversation and not caring that he wasn't being subtle about it.

"Well I've got some good new, some bad news, some even worse news and then it gets abysmal. So which do you want first?"

"I'll take the good news first," Harry prompted, it'd be a first as far as he was concerned.

"Well beyond that door is nothing but an open space, it's about a hundred metres across which the prison is wrapped around. I don't know what to call it so that'll have to do," George finished lamely.

"Atrium…." Harry supplied.

"Bless you"

"No, you prat, it's called an atrium. So we need to go down the stairs?" he asked.

"Hell no, there's nothing down there but water, and I'm telling you it looks damned cold," George informed him.

"Is there a dock or something?" he asked again hoping that they'd have an easy time of escaping.

"No, like I said there's nothing down there that'll help us. The stairs only go down one more level before they stop and then there's a fifty metre drop to the sea. I don't think we're going to be taking a boat off the island anyway, the waves would smash it to pieces against the stone. The waves have gotta be forty footers, maybe even bigger."

"Please tell me that was the abysmal news."

"No, that was the bad news. The worse news it that I think we're going to have to go up to get out of here, at least that's the only reason I can think of that all the aurors are guarding the upper levels."

"How many?"

"At least sixty. Now for the abysmal news, and I know you aren't going to like it. Somehow I don't think their orders are to recapture you Harry. They were shooting at me with those muggle firearms and I'm pretty sure some of them used Aveda Kedavra's."

"Shit, that's just great! These firearms, were they short like a wand or long like a staff?"

"Well actually I think they were using SA80's like the British army uses. Though I couldn't tell what variant they were. I could go ask if you like?" Harry blinked at the answer, he was constantly being surprised at the knowledge the twins had so wasn't sure why he'd be surprised.

"Uh, no that's okay. Damn, there's more of them than my shield can handle if they all hit me consistently. I was beginning to have trouble with these few let alone that many."

"So how are we going to get out Harry?"

"Shhh, let me think," Harry sat down on the cold flagstones and tried to think of a way out. It'd be much easier if he had Hermione to do the thinking for him he knew but he'd have to admit she was in no condition to deal with any of this right now. Every now and then he had to stop and reapply unconsciousness to one of the aurors. "Are they moving?"

"Hold on a second," George stuck his head through the door and looked around before turning back to him, "Nah, it looks like they're waiting for you to come to them."

"I see. I suppose they'll try and kill me and claim it was due to me refusing to return to lawful custody or somesuch." Harry paused for a moment as he ran Georges last statement over once more. "I've got it, if they're waiting for me to come to them then the answer is to go away from them."

"But there's only one more flight of stairs and then there's no where else to go. There's no more stairs."

"Yeah well that'd be true if I planned to use the stairs. I figure I'll go straight across the landing and over the banister, cast a cushioning spell to break my fall and then we swim out."

"Are you completely bonkers? That water's got to be freezing, you won't last long enough to get away," the ghost said as he cut through Harry's idea.

"Well what if I form the iron into a bubble? That way we should float away and I won't have to touch the water."

"It's got possibilities. It's certainly better than taking on all those aurors or jumping into the ocean without any protection. Alright, I second that plan. Now all we have to do is decide when."

"There's no time like the present George. The situation isn't going to improve if we wait." Harry stalked forward ignoring the fallen aurors around him and pulled the final door off its hinges and adding it to his growing supply of iron before running across the ten feet of corridor and vaulting over the railing. He could hear the sound of bullets ricocheting off his shield as he began to drop and the metal started to ring like a bell as more solid hits struck home. He was too focused on reshaping it to take any real note though since it was taking longer than he thought it would. He missed completely the light show as a couple of dozen killing curses crossed through the space he'd just been occupying since they were travelling slower than he was currently falling. He had just enough time to cast a wandless cushioning charm before they struck the water.

The last few inches of his bubble closed up a second after they sank out of sight allowing several litres of ice cold water to seep in. He shuddered slightly as the water seeped through his clothes and made contact with his skin.

"Damn that's cold, you were right Forge. I don't think I would have survived the shock of hitting the water let alone have a chance to swim anywhere," Harry admitted.

"Er Harry, shouldn't we have popped to the surface by now?" the ghost asked nervously.

"I'm not really sure. This thing weighs a fair bit so it could take a while. Just relax."

"Would now be a good time to mention that I don't like dark enclosed spaces Harry?"

"No, don't think that it is. Why didn't you mention that before?"

"I thought we'd be with the bobbing to the surface by now." Harry could hear the beginnings of panic in his friends voice.

"Hold on a moment," Harry said before he cast a lumos spell, and then a warming spell at the water he was sitting in figuring he might as well be comfortable. At least he could control that since he hadn't had much control of anything else that had happened recently. "Is that better?"

"Oh yeah, everything's just peachy. Now I only feel claustrophobic," he admitted snidely. Silence ruled for several minutes as they continued to wait for their bubble to emerge from the depths. Harry was frowning when they still hadn't surfaced after five minutes, he was beginning to wonder about the situation.

"Ooops!"

"What do you mean 'Ooops'?" George really didn't like the sound of that, it was the sound Fred used to make before they bungled one of their pranks.

"It means that I think the iron weighs more than the buoyancy of the volume displaced inside can counteract."

"What does that mean?"

"It means George…that I think we're sinking."

"Sinking!! What do you mean sinking? I thought we were going to surface?"

"Well I don't think we are. I don't suppose you could find out how deep we are could you?"

"How deep? We can't get any deeper mate. Make us lighter before we sink too far." George was really beginning to panic now.

"No."

"No? What do you mean no?"

"Stop panicking George and use your brain. What happens if we pop back to the surface?"

"Well I'd feel a lot more comfortable for a start," he admitted, "Then I suppose we'd escape beyond their anti-apparition wards and get somewhere safe."

"And then what? Don't bother answering because I'll tell you what'll happen then. They'll come looking for us because they'll know we're still alive. Now ask yourself what happens if we sink into the ocean without a trace," Harry ignored Georges whimper at that idea, "And then escape beyond their anti-apparition wards?"

"Then they'll think we're dead," George mused, "and they'll stop looking for us since it won't matter to them as long as we're 'dead'. Harry have I ever told you you're a genius?"

"Not recently no," Harry smirked. "Tell you what, while I figure out how to get us out of here, why don't you tell me how and why they put Fred in a high security cell?" Harry waited for some kind of response but finally decided to check on their other passengers. Pulling the two mice from his pockets he held them near their light source and gave them a quick examination before putting them back in his pocket.

George who'd recognized the red-furred mouse as his brother was curious as to the identity of the brown haired mouse and just had to ask.

"Who's the other mouse Harry?"

"That's Hermione," he noted Georges puzzlement, "don't worry about it, I'll explain it to you when we finally get out of here." Now there was another explanation he'd really rather put off as long as possible. How exactly do you tell someone that their brothers done something like Ron did to Hermione? Plus he'd really rather only having to explain it once so he'd wait for the other twin to be awake first. "Besides I asked you about Fred first," he reminded him.

"I'll fill you in on the background first so you'll understand more of it. After you kicked Voldies shorts, you remember that the aurors finally arrived? Well it was a pretty big shock when the arrested you like that I can tell you. But things got worse after that, they rounded up all the death eaters and marched them off. We thought it was good riddance but it turns out they were taken to court. The Wizengamot went through seventy-four cases in one afternoon. Of course they all pled Imperious like they did the last time. Half of them didn't even have time to sit in the defendants seat before they'd been acquitted…"

"What?" Harry yelled.

"They all got off scot free. Proving once again the 'Golden rule' that he who has the gold makes the rules. The ones who were unlucky enough to be killed in the battle, well it was dcided that they were all your victims. They just all happened to be innocent little purebloods caught in the cross-fire between Voldemorts imperioused soldiers and your murdering rampage of death and destruction. That's a direct quote from the Prophet by the way. The way the paper reported it, it wasn't a battle between the light and the dark, it was a battle between two dark lords who were having a turf war."

"Me?" Harry squeaked.

"Yes you. It went on to commend the valiant actions of the aurors who apprehended the most heinous Dark Lord in history before he became a menace to their safe and secure society. The paper kept telling everyone how bad you are and well Fred got mad when he heard some of the customers talking like they believed what they were reading. Two days later, like I told you before, someone cast a confringo into the store as he was opening and a lot of the stock exploded. Fred was arrested for having stock that could be 'detrimental to the health and well being' of people visiting Diagon Alley. They wouldn't listen to any evidence that said he wasn't responsible and they sentenced him to six months in Azkaban. They didn't do anything about Zonko's though and they carry a lot of similar lines to us. And they didn't do anything to heal Fred's injuries. I reckon there would have been an article in the paper in a few weeks reporting on his unfortunate death in custody. Made the wrong inmates mad don't you know? That kind of thing."

"Shit, I dunno what to say."

"There's nothing you could have done Harry. People who supported you had been going on holiday and not letting anyone know about their plans. It was all pretty fishy if you ask me. Um, what are you grinning about Harry?"

"I was right. We can apparate any time now. Seems I didn't need to do anything after all."

"Huh?"

"Remember how cold the water is? Well they figured no one could last long enough to get out the anti-apparition wards. It appears they included down in that calculation and didn't waste anymore energy extending them below where they thought anyone could swim in water that cold. We just passed through the underside of their wards. You can follow us right?"

"Sure, like I said where he goes so do I." George said and swore a moment later when he watched a grinning Harry disappear with a loud crack and felt a sudden jerk as his connection dragged him along faster than he could take note of his surroundings. He and Harry were going to have words when they finally arrived wherever the git was going.

/ To be continued… \

A/N: Don't forget to review. It doesn't take long and I really like to hear from you guys.


	4. Chapter 4

When Harry arrived at the shrieking shack he paused to look around and see if there was anyone else present and was relieved to find that they were all alone

Hell hath no fury

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Second verse same as the first! (that should be fourth but it doesn't rhyme)

A/N: I'd like to thank all the people who've reviewed this story and apologise for the delay. RL intruded along with a story called Savage innocence which grabbed my attention when I read the first two chapters. I'd recommend it. Anyway it's time to get on with the fic.

/

When Harry arrived at the shrieking shack he paused to look around and see if there was anyone else present and was relieved to find that they were all alone. When George arrived at the shack he was travelling so fast that he shot through the far wall and vanished so quickly that his presence didn't even register on Harry until the shaken ghost came back through the wall several minutes later looking rather perturbed

"You know, I hate you don't you?"

"What did I do?"

"If you'd have given me a chance I'd have latched onto you and gotten a ride directly here. As it was I was dragged here by my connection…" George paused for a moment looking puzzled. "I can't feel my connection," he said sounding a little sick, he'd never known a time when there wasn't a connection between the two of them, not one single time in their entire lives. It was a cold feeling to know that he was suddenly alone even if there were other people around him, even if he'd been alone before he'd always felt his brothers presence. This was different though, it was like the other no longer existed and it was the most horrible feeling he'd ever felt.

"Are you sure? I mean, I dunno, maybe it's just stretched so thin it feels like it isn't there?"

"No, it's gone. I can't feel anything…." George trailed off into a whisper and then silence.

"Hold on, I'll get Fred," Harry said while he rummaged through his pocket. Finally finding the mice he pulled them out and placed them on the floor roughly a metre apart. Reversing the order of spells he removed the stasis spell, a much quicker transfiguration and then he re-enervated the prone red-head. Fred sat up with a groan before turning to the side and emptying the contents of his stomach. Fortunately he missed the small brown mouse. Once he'd finished he slumped back onto his elbows and looked around.

"Oh thank god Harry, I just had the worst nightmare! You were fighting Voldemort and you killed him but George and a lot of our friends died, and then they arrested you and," Fred was speaking so fast he ran his words almost together to the point Harry was having trouble understanding him. It didn't matter though he knew that sooner or later events would catch up with the young man and things would only get worse from there. Fred who'd been looking around frantically finally caught sight of his twin and froze with wide eyes, "Oh," he sighed as he slumped over in a dead faint.

"Well that went well. Why don't you see if touching him will reconnect you? I'm not sure if it'll do any good but it can't hurt to try." If it didn't work then they'd have to research until they found a way to do it since he didn't think he could deal with the twins if they were both going to be like this long term. Harry watched as George approached his brother and reached out hesitantly, it was apparent that while he feared the lack of a connection to Fred that he feared that this might not work much more. As soon as his ethereal fingers brushed his brothers face there was an actinic flash of pure magic that left afterimages on Harry's retina and he could hear the ghost weeping in relief.

Harry decided to leave the two alone for a moment and deal with the mess Fred had made and also with the small brown mouse. A quick evanesco followed by an air freshening charm had the place feeling a lot more habitable. After that Harry transfigured one of the rotting chairs in the corner into a comfortable bed and laid Hermione's mouse form on it before transfiguring her back into her human form then he removed the stasis, but left her asleep from the stupefy figuring she needed the rest. He'd figure out what to do to help her later, right now they had more pressing problems.

It was kind of great that they were free but they really couldn't move around in the magical world and to disappear into the muggle world they'd need money which they had a serious lack of at the moment. Their total resources came in at fourteen Galleons, forty-three Sickles and a handful of Knuts, and he knew such an amount wouldn't last the three of them very long at all. Conversion rates ran at roughly six pounds to the Galleon and they had roughly sixteen of them once the different denominations were rounded up so they'd have just under a hundred pounds minus whatever the Goblins charged in exchange rates. Hermione would know more about that since she was the only person he'd known who had to convert muggle money before, he'd add that to the list of questions he'd ask her once she woke up.

He figured that if he could get her engaged thinking about their immediate problems that he might be able to delay her thinking about what had been done to her. How successful that'd be he really didn't know, she'd been gutted when he'd first gotten to her and he really couldn't see that changing.

Besides the money he had all of the aurors wands and a number of potions that he couldn't identify. He needed to know it there was anything useful in there, Hermione was a long way from feeling 'better' and he was pretty sure she was going to need pain potions at the very least.

"Hey George could you come over here a moment? He's not going anywhere you know?" he said to the hovering ghost.

"What do you need Harry?" It seemed that reconnecting with his twin had brought him out of his funk because the grin wouldn't leave his face.

"I was hoping you could help me identify these potions," he said gesturing towards the twenty or so phials he'd lined up.

"Well I could I suppose, but without three of my usual diagnostic tools I'm not sure how much help I'll be."

"What do you need, I'll see if I can get it for you."

"Really?" George grinned again, "Well in that case I need a sense of smell, one of touch and another of taste. Can you really get me them? The only senses I've got are my sight and hearing. I can tell you that there are hundreds of different colours and shades and each of them could be one of a dozen totally different potions. It'd probably be best to wake up sleeping beauty over there."

"No, I think we should let her sleep a little longer, she's had a real bad few weeks."

"I was talking about Fred, but now that you mention it you never did explain what she's doing here."

"Um, can that wait till we're not so busy? We're a bit exposed here." Harry temporised, he really didn't want to have this conversation now, or at all for that matter. Mind you he'd better get to it at some point or he'd be trying to explain to them why exactly he'd just eviscerated their little brother and that might be a little harder to explain without the background information.

"We're not exposed. The ministry thinks we're dead, remember?" George said suspiciously.

"Nope, we hope the ministry thinks we're dead. I won't count on it until I see it in the Prophet and hear it from six different independent sources." Having Moody as a trainer was coming in handy even if he had been a disguised death eater.

"Alright you've made your point so go and wake Fred up." Harry hated it when one of his great ideas crashed and burned like that, one of these days he was going to learn to think things through before mentioning it to anyone. Either that or let Hermione do all his planning from now on. Harry did as he was bid and cast an enervate at the prone red-head and listened as he groaned himself awake.

"Ugh, what happened?"

"You fainted," Harry smirked at the expression that crossed his friends face.

"I didn't faint. Weasley's do not faint," he retorted indignantly.

"I'm afraid you did Gred," George stuck his opinion in.

"I don't know what you're talking about brother mi…." He trailed off as he became aware that he was talking to someone who really shouldn't be there. His turned to the apparition of his brother with wide eyes and began to stammer, "b-bu-but y-y-you're.." He stopped when his eyes began to roll into the back of his head.

"Don't you dare!" A frustrated George swung his arm at Gred's head fully expecting it to go through his thick skull. Harry wasn't sure who was more surprised then with a resounding slap Fred's head rocked to the side.

"Wha'd you do that for?" Fred whined in shock.

"More importantly how'd you do that?" George wasn't paying attention to either of them though he was to busy looking at his hand and wondering exactly the same thing. Looking up at his brother speculatively before looking back at his hand again he took another swing and watched as his brother made a futile attempt to duck away from the now expected blow. He was a little disappointed when his hand passed through is living twins thick skull, Fred on the other hand was quite happy about it.

"Oi!" Fred yelled. George still wasn't paying attention though and tried waving his hand backwards and forwards through the space occupied by Fred's head like someone swishing their hands through water. Fred's only reaction was to shudder as the intensely cold and tingly feeling of being invaded by a ghost intruded on his senses.

"Will you quit it?" he asked as he waved his arms around trying to distract George from experimenting anymore. It proved to be counter-productive when it only spread the cold feeling to his arms and didn't deter the older twin in any way at all. Harry just sat on his haunches watching with a bemused expression as Georges frustration grew. The experiment came to an abrupt halt when his frustration boiled over and he managed to backhand Fred right in the mouth.

"Mnat's enuff!" Fred yelled while holding his abused mouth finally drawing the attention of a suddenly apologetic George.

"Sorry mate just got carried away for a moment. Can anyone tell me what just happened?" The ghostly twin asked plaintively.

"Well I could but I'm not sure I believe it," Harry admitted.

"Well he's not trying that again on me, you can volunteer if you like Harry."

"Does this mean I'm a poltergeist?" George ventured the idea and waited some kind of response.

"I dunno, but maybe. I saw this movie once…" Harry sighed as the twins interrupted him yet again. That was the trouble with talking about muggle things to wizards in general, it usually took longer to explain the muggle bits than you'd like.

"What's a movie Harry?" Was asked in eerie stereo.

"It's like wizarding pictures except they've got sound and usually tell a story," Harry answered giving some movies more credit than they deserved, "I'll take you to see one, one day. Anyway like I was saying I saw this movie once where a ghost was trying to save his wife from the guy who murdered him. While he was trying to find a way to help her he met a poltergeist who after some prodding taught him how to interact with his surroundings."

"So what did he teach him and do you think it'll work for me?" George asked hopefully.

"I don't know if it'll work for you but this is kind of how he explained it. You've got to take all your emotions, all your anger and hate and push it outwards when you strike."

"Well Peeves is the only poltergeist I know and I don't think he's particularly angry." Fred jumped in with his thoughts when Harry stopped speaking.

"Hn, maybe the story got it wrong then. Maybe it's not the type of emotion but the intensity that matters," Harry shot back.

"Hey guys, guys! I don't care," George shrugged, "As of now I'm a poltergeist in training and you know what that means?" He shared a significant look with his still living twin.

"That means brother dear that Gred and Forge are back in business," Fred said with a grin.

"Shouldn't that be Forge and Gred?" Harry quickly tuned out the escalating argument as he started to think about what else they needed to do. He'd already figured they were extremely short on supplies and money. The lack of food was a real problem and probably the thing they needed to sort out first since they were pretty much already half-starved.

The problem was they were all supposed to be dead and turning up anywhere where their limited money could be used would give the game away rather quickly. It'd be much better for them if they could convert the money into Pounds and disappear into the muggle world for a little while, at least until they had reasonable disguises. Figuring on how smart the average wizard appeared to be it shouldn't take much more than some hair dye and a sticking plaster to cover his scar. Then they could get into Gringotts and hopefully gain access to his vault.

An even better short term solution would be if they could convert the gold and silver itself into pounds. Each of the coins weighed about an ounce and if they were real gold then they'd be worth a lot more than the one Galleon to six Pounds. But before he started melting their only currency and making it useless he'd better find out if he was right.

"Hey guys," he turned back to find the argument had devolved even further.

"Forge and Gred!" George stated firmly as he poked his brother in the chest with his 'finger'.

"Gred and Forge!" Fred tried to return the poke but he was at a serious disadvantage. Harry watched the exchange repeat a couple of times before coughing loudly.

"Uh, guys? I need your help here." He swallowed when two sets of baleful eyes swung to him and pinned him.

"What?" they both asked simultaneously.

"I was wondering just how much gold is in a Galleon?"

"What do you want to know something like that for?"

"Well we're a bit short on money and I figure that if they're pure gold then they'd be worth a couple of hundred Pounds each rather than the six we can get in exchange at Gringotts."

"The Goblins guarantee that they contain exactly one Troy ounce of gold, but…"

"That's all I needed to know," Harry cast an incendio at the small pile of gold coins and then dove aside as with a muffled whumpf the spell backfired and sailed though the space he'd just been occupying.

"Like I was about to say Harry, you're not the first to think of that. There are thousands of muggleborn witches and wizards out there so the Goblins put some really powerful protective wards on the coins to stop them from doing what you just tried to do."

"A little warning next time wouldn't hurt."

"I tried but you just has to get all gung-ho about it."

"Uh guys I think we've got a problem."

"What?" the glaring pair asked as they turned towards George. Following his pointing finger they saw for themselves as smoke billowed across the ceiling away from the place his fireball had struck the mouldering plaster. A second later a panicking Harry sent a stream of water into the conflagration and watched in satisfaction as steam billowed out of the hole in the ceiling rather than smoke. With the added help the building ancient anti-fire wards were able to overcome the last of the fire.

"Crap that was close. I hope no one outside saw the smoke or we might have visitors." Knowing how the neighbours in Little Whinging liked to rubber neck when anything strange was going on he was kind of worried that they'd have to move from here. This was probably the best place to use for their head-quarters and he'd hate to lose it so quickly.

"Nah, wizards don't think like that Harry. If the house had been well alight then they'd come and investigate. A little smoke like that that stops as quickly as it started they won't even give it a second thought. They'll just assume the wards took care of it and since it's a derelict I'm not sure if anyone would have cared even if it did burn down."

"George? Why don't you have a look and make sure for a while. I wouldn't want to be surprised by any unexpected guests." George looked at his brother and at the slight nod he moved through the wall and took up station outside where he could see anyone coming.

"So what are we going to do?"

"We still need to find out what these potions are, if you want to work on that while I try to figure out where we're going to get some serious money."

"You know I didn't say your idea with the gold wouldn't work. You'd just have to have access to a seriously powerful wizard and a place that isn't quite this flammable. Now where do you suppose we could find a wizard like that?" He raised a brow significantly at Harry.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking."

"Yes Fred, but where would we get that much marshmallow?" Harry grinned at the twins bewildered expression.

"Huh?"

"I guess you'd have to have seen the cartoon, and before you ask it's like a movie. So….I guess we weren't on the same page? Why don't you tell me what you were thinking?"

"Once we get access to our vaults we'll have an awful lot of Galleons won't we?"

"You're assuming the Goblins are going to let us touch it or that the ministry hasn't managed to steal it all. You're right though, if we can access my vault I think there's about forty thousand Galleons in there. I don't know what else I've got but they always called the vault I used a trust vault and that's got to imply there's a main vault somewhere right?"

"I'd think so. The Potters are a pretty old family, almost as old as the Blacks and they go back to before the Roman occupation. I dunno if that means they were rich but I'd lay money on there at least being a lot of artefacts and books in there."

"It looks like we're going to have to plan a visit to Diagon Alley at some point."

"Yeah, but not before we manage to get a disguise." The two of them were distracted by a tapping noise on one of the windows. Harry whirled towards the sound and raised his hands in preparation before hissing to Fred.

"Wands, they're in the robe over there," he pointed in the direction with his chin before returning his attention to the window.

Fred rushed over to the pack Harry had prepared to carry the items he'd purloined from the aurors and froze when he noted that the robe was the official red of the auror corps.

"Harry? Tell me these aren't auror wands."

"Yeah, nicked them while we were escaping. I figured it'd be safer if I was holding them." He didn't notice as the red-head began to panic.

"Shit! You've got to banish them now!"

"What for?"

"Just put them somewhere a long way from here and be quick about it." George chose that moment to float back through the wall and took a bludgeoning spell right through where his chest would have been. As there was nothing to impede its progress it smashed into the wall behind him leaving a nasty dent in the heavy wooden panelling. George didn't even deign to notice it as he floated over to Fred.

"What's the problem Gred? I could feel you through the connection."

"Harry bought along all these Auror corps wands," he said as if that explained it all.

Apparently it did as Georges eyes widened, "Cripes I didn't think of that. Harry get rid of the wands, don't ask questions just do it. Then we're going to have to move quickly." Deciding that he'd better do as they asked Harry sent them somewhere where he thought they might do some good.

"So where do you think we should go?" Fred scrambled to gather their belongings meagre as they were and rejoined them.

"We could try Aunt Aggie's place."

"That's a hell of a distance Fred, you up for it?"

"I don't think it'll be a problem for me, the problem will be that Harry doesn't know where it is and I'll have to side-along him and Hermione."

"I wouldn't try that, it's hard enough with just one passenger. I'd take Hermione first and then come back for Harry. At least he can defend himself if anyone comes to investigate the ministry tracers." While the twins discussed their transportation options Harry quickly checked Hermione to see how she was doing. He noted idly that his stunner had worn off a while ago and that she was currently in a natural slumber with her energy levels pretty close to full he wouldn't be surprised if she woke up soon. A side-along apparition was sure to wake her if she didn't wake on her own.

"Ministry tracers?" he asked as he caught the tail end of their discussion.

"That's right, Bill told us about them years ago. The ministry puts a tracker on every auror wand in case they're stolen. They tend to come down like a tonne of bricks on anyone caught with a stolen wand. In any case we're running out of time," he finished as he rushed over to Hermione and touched her in preparation to apparate, "Come on George or you'll be left behind." George having learned his lesson earlier rushed over and latched onto his brother just before they all disappeared leaving an apprehensive Harry sitting in a suddenly empty house. It felt a lot colder and unfriendly without the twins around. Twenty-three of the longest seconds in his life a bruised Fred reappeared in the room.

"What happened to you?"

"No time for that Harry, latch on we've gotta go!"

"Hold on a second," Harry walked over to him but as he came a constant stream of fire left his hands and struck the dilapidated walls. The fire wards that'd already taken a beating that day collapsed completely and fire erupted around them as the fire began to eat the tinder dry timber structure. Harry touched Fred just as a wall of flame backwashed towards them and they disappeared.

When they reappeared they were in a high meadow, with it being early summer the air was crisp and the landscape was a restful emerald green, around them a riot of wild flowers covered the expanse of the field right up to the edges of the forest. Nestled in amongst the trees and looking like an abandoned croft-hold was a small cottage. The view nearly took his breath away as he saw the lake off in the distance and wondered just where on earth they were. The sense of awe was like seeing Hogwarts for the first time all over again. He was interrupted in his perusal of their surrounding when Fred rounded on him.

"What the hell was that all about. You nearly torched us both, my hairs gone all frizzy." He complained. It was true as well, not that he'd escaped the same fate but people were less likely to comment on Harry's suddenly frizzy hair since it was actually an improvement on the way it normally looked.

"You first Fred, what happened to you? You were only gone a few seconds. How'd you get so banged up?"

"I dunno what happened. One second we were apparating, then I remember Hermione's eyes opened and she screamed and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air. I think she hit me with accidental magic, though I'm not sure why." Harry wasn't anywhere near as puzzled as Fred. He could imagine her reaction to waking up and finding a red-head leaning over her, the fact Fred was still alive was amazing. He scanned the field and found her slumped among the wild-flowers, she looked like she was asleep again but was probably unconscious since she'd fired off most of her magic attacking her 'assailant'.

"That's all I know. Now you get to explain why you torched the shrieking shack."

"Well I figured if they're going to come and look for their wands they were bound to find our apparition traces," it was a well known fact that side-along was very wasteful of magical energy and that made it much easier to track, "so I figured if they had to wait until a fire was put out or until it burnt out then our trace might have disappeared. The other reason is that if we're lucky they'll decide to follow the wands and then they'll be too busy to check for us." Harry smirked viciously at the thought of the ministries reaction to finding their lost wands.

"Just where did you send them Harry?"

"A little place we both know in Knockturne Alley by the name of Borgin and Burkes," Harry buffed his fingernails on his robe while both Weasley's looked at him in awe.

"Bloody wicked!" they said in unison. "The ministries going to have a field day investigating that." Fred continued.

"Well I figured he'd have a hard time explaining why he had the wands," Harry admitted.

"You don't understand Harry, they're not going to give him a hard time. They're going to tear his wards down forcefully and strip his stock out and then they're going to search the place for hidden magic with a fine tooth comb. Borgin himself will probably find himself in a small cell with some big men being asked a lot of question under veritaserum. They normally ignore Knockturne Alley if they can help it since there's really not a lot going on in there anyway, just a couple of 'dark' shops. I doubt he'll be able to buy himself out of this trouble when they get through with him."

"Woah, and I just wanted to make him uncomfortable?"

"You succeeded with that…."

"….I'll say," George finished Fred's statement.

"Now I suppose we'd better get Hermione into the house so we can relax."

/ To be continued… \

A/N: Before anyone says anything about George I just thought I'd let you know that he was always going to be a poltergeist in this story. So don't abuse me when you send in your much awaited reviews. As to the tapping on the window, for those who haven't guessed that was George trying out his new powers.

Kudos to anyone who guesses which movie and/or cartoon I was referring to.

Like I said before, Reviews are very welcome, let me know what you think. Please don't flame me like Namikaze Ichigo did. Swearing at me isn't the way. If you don't agree with something I write I'll be more than happy to reply to your reviews and explain why I wrote something. Though I won't give away the plot.

**If you're going to insult me at least try to be original, here's some of my favourites.**

**You sir are the crotch droppings of an incontinent syphilitic camel.**

**I suspect your mother was a Chihuahua since your incessant yapping is getting on my tits.**

**You sir are a prime example of why siblings should never mate.**

**With your sloping forehead and non-existent chin, combined with an overly large nose your profile has an oddly wedge shaped appearance.**

**If you were abducted by aliens and subjected to an anal probe I'm sure there's a fifty-fifty chance you'd come back with a sore mouth since not even alien science could tell the difference between your anus and mouth.**

**I'd like to hear any insults that you can come up with in this vein so feel free to drop me a PM. Please don't leave them in reviews unless you mean them. Thankyou. **


	5. Chapter 5

Walking towards the cottage Harry just had to ask

Hell hath no fury

Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I know I'm supposed to write something witty and amusing here but I seem to have forgotten it. If anyone would like to remind me then feel free.

A/N: Some people have Reviewed(and I hope they review again) and said that they couldn't wait to see this chapter and my reply is that I'm sorry but you had to, it wasn't finished yet. Besides there was the fact that I had to tear the end of this chapter to pieces when it went astray of where I planned. Um, oh yeah and for those pedantic readers out there, Harry Potter and all other characters in that universe don't belong to me but the redoubtable J.K.Rowling. So there! With brass knobs on. Nyah! Nyah! You're still reading this?

Suggested reading – Luna's Hubby by Meteoricshipyards

Vanilla by Danieljgrant

What it means by Batsutousai –(Persevere past the character deaths in chapter 1, it's worth it)

Apologies for the delay, I'm back now, got caught up in playing EVE-Online. Getting your cruiser killed by some other player isn't why I play games like that. I like strategy but the learning curve is too steep when people who've been playing for years go around 'killing' complete noobs like me. I mean come on; where's the challenge in that? Anyway, on with the story.

/ Somewhere in the Lake District \

Walking towards the cottage Harry just had to ask.

"Um Fred? Your Aunt Aggie isn't going to mind us dropping in like this unannounced is she?"

"Not unless you hold a séance Harry. She's been dead for nearly twenty years. . Dad said he hadn't even known she existed until the will reading was announced. He certainly didn't know she was a squib until after he inherited the place from her. Back in those days it was a sign of shame to have a squib in the family. There were a lot of places like this back then where family members could be kept out of societies eyes." Fred admitted reluctantly.

"I didn't think your family was like that?"

"We're not, at least not now. This was the polite way to deal with the problem. Female squibs would end up in places like this or the nunneries while males were sent off to join the army. Some families even paid for commissions trying to do the best for their children that they could. The less tolerant families would lock them up in cellars or attics so they never saw the light of day while the blood purists would simply kill them out of hand claiming they were doing the poor cripples a favour." Fred finished his explanation grimly.

"Oh." There really wasn't very much he could say in reply to what he'd just been told. He'd always thought that wizarding society was stuck in the very early nineteen hundreds, but now he knew that it was actually advancing. The problem was that it wasn't advancing as quickly as the rest of the world so when muggleborn children entered it, it seemed irredeemably backwards and archaic. It didn't help that the purebloods controlled most of the society and they were attempting to hold it back to the glory days with a vengeance. Hermione had been right all those years ago when she told him that the 'Statute of Secrecy' wasn't doing the wizarding world any favours.

Looking around for something to help him change the topic he spotted George floating back towards them.

"So what's it look like?" Meaning the house that they'd sent him to check. Having a ghost who couldn't be hurt by any surprises to scout things out for them would be really handy and the fact that he was discovering the extent of his new powers was an added bonus.

"Well it's seen better days. Of course we haven't used it for summer holidays since before Ron went to Hogwarts so it's a bit dusty but the preservation wards have held up well…" He trailed off when he saw the hard glint in Harry's eyes. "What's up with you?"

"I've been trying to think of a way to tell you something that I don't think you're going to like for a while now. Look lets get inside and I'll fill you in." With that he stalked towards the cottage much faster than before trailing an unconscious Hermione whom he'd levitated.

Fred and George shared a significant look and mouthed, "What was that?" at each-other. Fred shrugged in response.

"I don't think we're going to find out unless we follow him."

"So let's go already." George floated away and Fred almost ran to catch up.

When they reached the building Harry was already inside casting cleaning spells at the dust. The couch was still dusty to look at but the dust had settled into the fibres and was proving resistant to his efforts. Hermione was still sleeping where she lay on another of those transfigured beds that Harry had been making for her.

"Alright what's this all about Harry? You've been cryptic with us and put us off a couple of times now."

"Like I said I know you're not going to like what I'm about to tell you. In fact I don't even think you will believe me and I didn't want you angry at me."

"There're two ways that we'll believe you Harry. One is if you took veritaserum, which we don't have so you can't do that. The other is to take a wizards oath that you're telling us the truth, though I'd try and limit the length of time on that or you could get trapped by it for the rest of your life."

Harry thought about it for a couple of minutes while the twins tried to remain patient. Curiosity had always been their bane as kids and had managed to gt them into more trouble than all their other escapades combined.

"Okay, um take a seat Fred," Harry offered, he didn't ask George since he didn't know how a ghost got comfortable, "Here we go. I Harry James Potter swear on my magic and my life that the things I tell you until I say the word evanesce will be the truth as I know it. So mote it be!" Harry who'd been pointing his hand towards himself winced at the flash of magic that his oath caused. Then taking a deep breath he started at the beginning where he'd seen Fred being dragged into his cell. Fred winced as Harry explained the condition he'd been in even if he knew he'd been in pain it sounded so much worse being told to you in a dispassionate voice like this. His discomfort turned to outrage a short time later when he got to the part where Ron had brought Hermione into the jail and what he'd done to her and Harry after that. George was feeling even stronger emotions than that as his 'fingers' tore through the back of the sofa. Harry finished with a softly spoken evanesce that took care of some of the dirt in the far corner before turning back to the twins feeling much lighter.

"If you hadn't have given an oath I'd never have believed you Harry," Fred spoke harshly causing Harry to flinch from him.

"I'm not so sure Fred. I think I might have believed him even without it," Georges assertion surprised both of them into silence. "From my point of view everything's much clearer than ever before. I can access all of my memories, even things we'd both forgotten a long time ago. The Ron I remember could be insecure, petty and down-right obnoxious when he felt someone else was getting a better deal than he was.

You've got to admit that he was jealous of Harry, remember all the times that he turned on his supposed best friends? Then there's the fact that Hermione's intelligence always intimidated him. He was always trying to prove himself better than the rest of us. I remember when he first beat me at wizards chess. He kept challenging me to another game just so he could grind it in that he was better than me at something."

"I remember that. Do you really think he was that insecure?"

"I remember in first year where he admitted that he had a lot to live up to, and when he looked in the Mirror of Erised he saw himself as the Head boy and quidditch captain and they'd won both the house cup and the quidditch cup. He told me that no matter what he accomplished at school that one of his older brothers had been there before him and that it'd always be a case of people saying that he was just like such and such a brother. Yeah I really think he was that insecure guys. Then there was the time he turned on me at the beginning of the whole Tri-Wizards cup and wouldn't believe that I really didn't want to be a part of it. It took me nearly dying before he'd believe that someone was trying to kill me. If that first task had been easier than dragons I don't think we would have made up at all that year."

"I'll kill him," Fred yelled.

"Oh crud, mum doesn't know about this does she? It'll kill her when she finds out."

"I hate to say this but you're not going to kill him Fred, and we'll worry about your explaining things to your mother when the time's right."

"You're mistaken Harry if you think I'm going to let him get away with this. This is a Weasley problem and Weasley's always take out their trash. I will kill him and if not me then it'll be Bill or…." He stopped speaking as he remembered that Charlie had died in the final battle along with their parents.

"No you won't, you want to know why? It's because you aren't the injured party here. Hermione gets first dibs on him and if she doesn't want it then I'm going to make him pay in ways that'll cause generations of wizards to shudder in dread and fear. Who said anything about letting him get away with it? You get me?" Both of the Weasley brothers backed away from Harry as his magic seeped from his body and began to pulse around him in time with his breathing. It took a moment or two for him to regain control and when he did they were still wary of approaching him. Harry chose to take his temper outside for a while and let the beautiful countryside act as a balm to his tattered control.

"Remind me not to piss Harry off if I can help it please George," Fred gulped audibly, "When did he get so scary?"

"I figured that out in his second year during that whole 'Heir of Slytherin' thing. Bit slow on the uptake aren't we brother dear?"

Meanwhile Harry was outside pouring bludgeoning spells into a very large oak tree and watching as the wood was compacted to the point that bits of it would explode from the trunk after the recoil of each spell. The wildlife in the area had long since scattered, they had a sixth sense for impending disaster and wanted to be as far away from it as possible. After five minutes he'd reduced his first tree to kindling and moved on to another.

As he slowly regained control of his tempestuous emotions he began to feel the differences in his magic. At the time he'd put Voldemort back in the grave he'd crawled out of nearly three years prior he'd begun to feel that he might even be as powerful as the papers said he was. Of course that had all been before he'd killed the Dark Lord when they needed him. He wondered what they'd said after he'd finished the prophecy. When he'd started feeding power into the manacles that held him he'd doubted that he'd ever be free of them but after five weeks he'd managed to destroy them and gain his freedom. Now he was beginning to appreciate the difference in both his magical reserves and his capacity to channel that magic.

He couldn't quantify how much stronger he was because there was no way to compute such things. Magic wasn't like science in that manner, not that it couldn't be if anyone decided to take the time, but it was a fact that most wizards discounted the scientific approach when muggle-born's attempted such a feat. They much preferred the art of instinct and intuition to figure such things, and for the most part it worked. A witch or wizard could walk into a room with fifty other wizards and within a couple of minutes they'd be able to rank their power in respect to the others present.

Harry had no intention of walking into a room with fifty other wizards at this time because he was pretty damn sure he'd have to fight his way back out again. It was too early for that kind of thing and besides they had other more important things to worry about, Ron was out there and they had a window of opportunity to deal with him. The second that Ron knew that they'd all managed to escape and it was really only a matter of time then Ron would scurry for the nearest hidey hole until things blew over. Not that Harry had any intention of letting things blow over until after justice had been served.

The sun was sinking below the treeline when h headed back to the small cottage.

"Heya Harry, how you feeling?"

"A lot calmer than I was before. I don't remember who told me, but they were right, blowing shit up when you're angry is very soothing," Harry said with a slight grin.

"Know what you mean Harry, me and Fred always found pranking rather therapeutic."

"All right, now that I'm back I think it's time to start planning," he turned to find Hermione still sprawled on the couch sleeping, "Is she going to be alright if I wake her?" Harry looked at each of the twins in order, he had a lot of experience with magical exhaustion but very little knowledge of how it affected other people. He certainly didn't have a healers perspective on it and didn't want to do more harm than the good he'd receive from having her in on their plans from the start.

"Well there's no real way to tell other than to check her magic levels with mage sight. On the other hand using enervate transfers a little of the casters magic and allows it to be used by the recipient, so she should be alright as long as she doesn't try to do any magic. Not that that will be a problem since none of us have a wand."

"Okay," Harry cast an enervate spell as the quickest way to wake Hermione up and was happy to see an almost immediate response as her breathing changed and she began to wake up.

"How you doing Hermione?" Harry reached down to help her sit up, he didn't like the fact that she eyed his hand as if it were a snake about to strike her but had to admit it was better than her lashing out at him like she had at Fred earlier. It took her a moment to take in her surrounding and a further moment to realize that their ordeal at the hands of the ministry was over before she really looked at him and saw that the hand was attached to him. She tentatively gripped the hand and allowed herself to be pulled upright before swinging her feet over the edge of he seat and placing them on the ground.

She didn't answer him directly but he could see the welter of emotions she was holding back.

"Just Relax Hermione there's no one here who wants to hurt you," Harry soothed her. Fred and George watched silently not really wanting to draw the attention of the wich that their imbecilic brother had once very accurately labelled as 'brilliant but scary'. Slowly backing away Harry returned to his seat across the room and sat down, it didn't make him any happier when Hermione relaxed almost as soon as he was settled.

Sighing Harry began speaking softly, explaining what had happened to him since he'd beaten Voldemort and how the ministry had managed to take him when the Dark Lord hadn't been able to. Fred was slightly indignant that his being incarcerated hadn't been the catalyst for him beginning to train his magic to overcome the manacles and other magic suppression that was standard to Azkaban.

Hermione on the other hand was feeling oddly pleased and a little mortified that he'd been aware of what happened to her and that she had been the catalyst for his training. A part of her began to reassess their relationship, she found that her survival instincts were labelling him as safe in addition to trusted. She knew he'd never ask for anything she wasn't willing to give and he'd never even dream of taking anything from her against her will. All in all she was finding her new emotions confusing as she tried to fight her way through the aftermath of Ron's attack. The real question was what was her relationship with Harry? Just a friend didn't seem to fit anymore, brother wasn't even close and boyfriend, lover or husband weren't even considered since she was aware she wasn't ready for anything like that. It might be a very long time before she could take that step not that either of them needed any kind of distraction at the moment, and the mere thought of touching someone in that way caused her to shudder in mixed fear and disgust.

Fred's story was told mostly for Hermione's benefit since Harry had already heard it from George. Some of the things they hadn't discussed were the farce of a trial he'd faced where the Wizengamot had confiscated their 'obviously inferior and dangerous stock', fined him the entirety of his bank accounts and sentenced him to six months in Azkaban for reckless endangerment. Forgotten or totally disregarded was the fact that Zonko's Joke emporium sold many of the same pranks as they did and many that their competitor sold were even less stable than their Wheezes. George suspected that the real reason they had been thrown in the clink as he put it was that Fred had been overheard defending Harry from a customer who'd been reading the latest slanderous article in the Prophet. It was proclaiming the defeat of not one Dark Lord but two at the final battle of Hogwarts, and the fact that the ministry was responsible for both. The fact that the aurors hadn't even bothered to turn up to the battle that had left extensive scars on the ancient school was glossed over.

Not that Harry really cared about the glory, he'd spent most of the years since his eleventh birthday trying to downplay the name 'The boy-who-lived' so someone actually not paying attention to him was nice in a way. On the other hand he would have preferred to have been ignored totally than be thrown in Azkaban. Then again he'd know that Scrimgour was a political creature and would defend his territory from anyone that might threaten his hold on the reigns of power. A triumphant hero would have definitely made his life difficult as he tried to sway the next election to his side. Many people would have voted for Harry even if he wasn't running for office and he already knew how magical contracts went when he'd been dragged into the Tri-Wizard tournament.

That led into Hermione's story where the same day he'd been 'arrested' Hermione had begun to campaign for his freedom. Ron's antipathy towards her attempts to gain an audience with the minister or at least someone high ranked enough to make the minister take her seriously had angered and confused her to begin with. His outright attempts to bully her into dropping nearly seven years of friendship with Harry were one of the reasons she'd eventually told him their relationship was over. The other was when she'd found that Ron had both Harry's invisibility cloak and his Firebolt in his possession and she knew for a fact that he wasn't intending to keep them safe for Harry should he return.

She'd returned to her old home in Essex, a held bittersweet memories for her since her parents no longer lived there, but the memory of Ron's taunting as she left, telling her that she'd never last a week without him and that she'd come crawling back had only fired her determination to never go anywhere near the creep again.

It'd been a real shock when two weeks later Ron had turned up on her door apologising for the things he'd said. She'd actually believed he meant what he was saying, especially when he told her he'd used his fathers contacts within the ministry to get her the meeting she needed. Like a gullible fool, and she blushed to remember how naïve she'd been she'd followed him to the appointment he'd arranged. It'd been a real shock to walk into that office and be faced by all that pink, it'd only taken her a moment to realize that she'd been set up and Umbridge turning her office chair around to face her had only confirmed her suspicion.

She'd been restrained by two aurors before she could even take her revenge on Ron for yet another betrayal. She wasn't meant to end up in jail though, no, she was meant to be turned into the imperioused play thing of Ron and whoever else wanted a go as he'd so eloquently explained. The plan had failed miserably though when she'd taken a page out of Harry's book and resisted the unforgivable, Ron thinking she was his had stepped up and received a fist to the side of his head before she'd been restrained again and an hour later she'd been dragged into that cell by….. She trailed off there, not willing to tell them the rest even though she knew they already knew or suspected. The only thing about that whole meeting that she wanted to remember was Umbridge's parting shot.

"What do you think she meant by, 'Take her away, might as well get a head start.'"

"I don't know 'Mione but if Umbitch is involved I doubt it's anything good," Harry replied.

"No, I meant, was she referring to me being your friend and supporter or did she mean that this was going to happen to all the muggle-borns?"

"There's no way to know right now, what we really need is information."

"I don't know about you two but I really need food at the moment. All the information in the world don't do us any good if we're too weak to act on it." Fred spoke quietly from the corner. The rumble from his mid-riff belied any humour that Harry might have thought the irrepressible prankster might have been trying for, and now that the subject had been broached Harry felt pretty much the same way.

"Well I could go without for a little while."

"Yeah but you're a ghost already so it isn't like you're going to kark it if you don't," Fred glared at his unrepentant brother.

"Alright, alright, keep your hair on Gred. So how are we going to get food all the way up here?"

"It's a pity we can't go to Hogwarts," Hermione said as she contemplated the food they would normally have available to them. They'd even been able to get into the kitchens in the last two years they'd been there. "Or maybe we can!" her face lit up as a thought flashed across her mind.

"What are you talking about Hermione? We can't go anywhere near the school or they'll know that we're still alive."

"No, maybe go to Hogwarts is a bad idea, but how about getting Hogwarts to come to us?" she finished breathlessly, something she could do even easier now that she was in such bad shape. The twins still looked a little confused but Harry figured out what she was talking about in a flash.

"Of course! All we need is Dobby, he'll be dead useful. So how are we going to get him here?" Harry asked despondently. He was hoping they wouldn't have to go back to Hogsmeade or anything like that. It could get tricky if there were aurors swarming around the Shrieking Shack trying to figure out what happened there earlier. His thought processes were interrupted by a sharp crack from just behind him that had him whirling around even as his hand rose and shot a stunner at where he thought the sound had come from. A second crack ass a tiny figure apparated once more and appeared elsewhere in the room was Harry's clue as to who had found them.

/ To be continued…. \

Author's closing notes. It took a little while to get this done due to RL and playing games online. It's back on track now, though the updates won't be as quick as the first four chapters. I do hope to get a steady pace on this. Oh and please REVIEW.

Right, nuff said for the mo.

Go on and read something else


	6. Chapter 6

Hell hath no fury

Hell hath no fury

Chapter 6

Disclaimer. HP ain't no bodies business but Warner Bros and J.K.Rowling.

/ Still in the Lake district \

"You is calling Dobby?" The elf that stood there eyeing them reproachfully and it has to be said no one can do 'reproachful' like a house elf. It's in the eyes. He was a bit miffed that he'd been attacked but before he took exception he looked around properly and his face lit up with excitement as he homed in on Harry. "Master Harry Potter sir's is needing something? I's is knowing youse is not a bad wizard like the men from the Ministry is telling us you is. Harry Potter sirs is too good and kind and powerfuls for that!" By the time the elf had gotten half way through his speech Harry's arms were windmilling as he tried to maintain his balance with the additional weight of the elf wrapped around his knees. The twins weren't helping the situation either as they snickered at his discomfort.

"Way to go Harry." Fred smiled at his friend.

"I thought we'd have to be closer for him to hear," Hermione said.

"Oh no miss Hermies we'eze is hearing our masters no matter where he is," Dobby said proudly.

"Master?" Harry asked doubtfully. He didn't remember taking the elf into his service, and it certainly hadn't been why he freed the elf in the first place. Dobby blushed slightly at his faux pas but no one could miss the hopeful, almost pleading look in the elves eyes.

"Why's it so important to you Dobby? I mean you're a free elf, you don't need a master." Harry steeled himself as the elf looked like he was about to cry.

"I is not liking being free as much as I was thinking but I was liking Master Malfoy less. There's also the dying part, Dobby is not liking that bit at all."

"What do you mean dying?" Hermione's attention was now riveted on the elf.

Dobby seemed to shrink in on himself like a house of cards that collapsed under its own weight as he admitted, "We'eze is needing to be bonded. Elves is no longer able to live alone like we once did. Even as forest elves we is needing our sacred tree. Without it we is withering like the tree without its water." The four humans stopped, stunned at that revelation. They'd always thought of it like a bond of servitude but from what Dobby had just said it was more a case of survival. Hermione was wondering how it had eventuated and decided that it was probably a natural evolution as humans encroached on the elves natural habitat.

"So you're saying you need to be bonded to a human? What about Winky?"

"Winky is already dying. She is not as strong as Dobby is and needs the bond more." If anyone doubted the feelings the elf felt for Winky they were disabused as he broke down and sobbed at the thought that she'd die.

"Will she live if she bonds now?" Surprisingly it was Hermione who asked that question. She only just beat Harry out though.

"Yes! She would get better, maybe not like before but better," he answered with new hope shining in his eyes, "Is youse asking to bonds with Dobby and Winky?" He looked at Harry beseechingly; another look that elves are surprisingly good at.

"Um, yeah, if you want," Harry said hesitantly, keeping an eye on his friend in case her S.P.E.W proclivities should rear their ugly head once more.

Hermione just looked on impassively as she realigned her ideals, it was one thing when she was a noble freedom fighter fighting to free an enslaved race. It was something completely different when she knew that the elves she freed would eventually die. Dobby didn't have any reservations he simply vanished only to reappear half a minute later with a pathetic bundle held in his arms. It took a second to realize that it was an emaciated house elf that appeared as little more than skin and bone.

"Please, bonds with her quickly, I is not knowing how she is surviving this long." Dobby placed her on the ancient couch and watched anxiously as Harry approached.

"How do I do this Dobby?"

"Is easy ritual. Place your hand on her head and says, 'I accept you into the service of House Potter-Black'." It was amazing how the elves voice changed from his normal scratchy squeak to a deep baritone when he recited the ritual. No one took too much notice though as Harry repeated the words he'd been told to, refusing to flinch as his hand touched the female elves greasy hair.

He couldn't help flinching a moment later when Winky's back arched and her eyes and mouth flew open in shock. They could almost hear the silent scream as her body shuddered even more and then just when he thought she'd do herself an injury the tiny figure went limp and dropped over onto her side.

"What the hell?"

Hermione pushed him out of the way as she rushed over to the couch and knelt to examine the house elf, "Is she alright?" Reaching out she felt the house elves wrist looking for a pulse and sighed in relief when she felt a thready fast tattoo against her fingertips. A quick check that the elf was still breathing and she was looking askance at Dobby.

"Winky is fine," he reassured her, "Winky is feeling Master Harry Potter sirs magic and she is not used to it. It shouldn't happens again." He wasn't game to explain to anyone just how intense the feeling of Harry's magic coursing through the young female elf's body would feel since he didn't want to freak anyone out. It wouldn't normally have gotten such a reaction from her but it'd been left very late for her to form a bond. Dobby also wasn't going to tell Harry how intense Winky's devotion would be for a couple of months after she came out of her coma.

George was muttering to himself as he watched on and Dobby proving that large ears had more uses than just to punish himself with answered.

"Dumblydoor is knowing but Winky is wanting to work for a family not for Hogywarts. But no one is wanting a bad elf and Winky is giving up hope. Then she is too sick to be taken on by a new master."

"Is she going to be alright now?" Fred asked as he watched with a serious expression.

Dobby didn't answer immediately, instead he leant over and peered into her eyes and waited before answering, "She is taking a long times to get like this so it is taking nearly as much times for her to get better. She is needing to stay still but she wills be wanting to work. She will fights herself in getting better. You is doing good to get her to do light works for a long time. Dobby is doing all the heavy work."

For the most part the house elves offer was altruistic, he really did want to see Winky get better, but there was a small part that was kind of looking forward to having the lions share of the work required of the family fall squarely upon his shoulders. He was so busy focusing on the thought of all the work he'd be doing for his master that he missed the sensation of someone touching his forehead and didn't hear the words that were said over him, it proved impossible for him to miss the feeling of lightning coursing through his veins for the first time in half a decade.

Not that being bonded to the Malfoy clan had ever felt like this. For one, being bonded to a clan with maybe fifty people in it was different to being bonded to a single master, or more precisely a clan that only had one member at present. As he'd told Harry, elves needed the bond to sustain life and sanity. What he hadn't mentioned was that the bond was only as strong as the average of the wizards and witches you were bonded too. Lucius Malfoy on his own was a rather strong wizard, for the sake of argument he'd rate the man was a five, his wife was mediocre at best and would only rate a two while their son was somewhere in between with a rating of four. That meant that their average was more like three and a half. That didn't account for all the other members of the Malfoy line who were also linked to the elf at one stage and no one in the Malfoy line even acknowledged the half dozen squibs that the family had produced and hidden away from the prying eyes of society. The magical world might not know of them but the bond did, and it didn't care about disowning or shame and that had an impact on the strength of the bond.

Master Harry on the other hand was an extremely powerful wizard, probably three times stronger than his previous master and it was all the house elf could do to restrain the urge to beat on his chest and scream his superiority to any task his master might ask of him. He knew he'd chosen well when he'd refused to bond with Hogwarts like the other elves that'd been freed of their bonds. Dobby eyed the diminutive female and wondered just how long she'd take to heal now that she was bonded to such a powerful wizard. At first he'd thought that it would take a couple of years but now he knew just how strong his master was he'd have to revise that to months or even weeks before she'd fully recovered, and if he was any judge she'd be fully awake and aware by tomorrow sometime.

Dobby wasn't the only one feeling something from the connection either, Harry had felt the elf's magic backwash into his system and wondered if that was something that happened everytime an elf bonded with a family or if he was just lucky. He hadn't felt anything like that when he'd bonded to Winky but then he reasoned that she was weaker than Dobby so it might have ben too faint to feel. The whole thing was like a feedback lop where the magic fired into the other and then came back with a little more energy until finally everything snapped back to 'normal' except it wasn't…Normal that is. Another thing that wasn't normal in all of this was that he could feel Dobby constantly, not as a presence but as an indicator and again he didn't have enough information to figure out what it meant. If he had to hazard a guess though he'd say it was a measure of the health of the elf he was bonded to.

A measure of both physical and magical health and possibly mental as well as he compared the two aura he could see. His brain filled in the aura with colour so he could see that Winky was mostly red with tinges of orange mixed in while Dobby was solid yellows and greenish colours that seemed to indicate he was mostly healthy though he could be better

All of this crashed through Harry's mind in a split second as he adjusted to the new reality of his life. He did have to wonder though, if this was how it felt to have a house elf bonded to you then how could anyone mistreat them? If they knew just what they were doing to the small creature in terms of damage? Then again he only had to look at the people who were most likely to own an elf to figure out what they thought and that was that elves were only slightly lower on the evolutionary scale than pond-scum and therefore not worthy of any consideration at all.

Dobby started to fidget under the intense scrutiny of his master and wondered what he'd done wrong and what his punishment was going to be, although that wasn't the feeling he was getting across the bond. He was feeling a sense of intense curiosity coming from Harry. There were other things he was beginning to feel as well such as the hollow sensation that came with hunger and several other less well defined emotions as well.

"Master Harry need something?" he asked.

"Uh," Harry shook his head to clear out stay thoughts and then shook it again negatively, "No, we're…."

"Harry, might I remind you we need food. Hermione's in pretty bad shape and Fred isn't doing so well either."

"I'm fine!" Fred snapped even though everyone present could see he was weaving slightly like he was punch-drunk. Hermione looked a little glassy eyed herself as both fatigue and hunger caught up with her. Harry reassessed the situation and came up with a plan.

"Alright, first things first, we need food," Dobby didn't seem to mind that he was stating the obvious, "After you've brought us some bland food I need you to go to the apothecary's in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and get their owl delivery catalogues so we can order potions or at least get ingredients."

"No Harry, we can't afford to have owls know where we are," Hermione protested weakly.

"I didn't say anything about letting an owl deliver it. We've got an elf for that. What we need is an idea of what it's going to cost us to get some healing and nutrient potions, or at least the ingredients to make out own. That reminds me Fred. Did you guys find anything useful in those potion we grabbed?"

"Well they're all useful. We've got a couple of pain relievers, a pepper-up potion, several antidotes for common poisons and an anti paralysis potion. There was also a couple of minor healing potions but..they're not really useful for much."

"It's better than nothing, which is what we had before. Get one inside yourself and give the other one to Mione," Harry didn't miss Hermioe's wince as he ed the old nickname, then he remembered who'd coined it and nearly smacked himself in the head for being an insensitive jerk as he reminded her of Ron once more.

"Sorry Hermione, I…" he trailed off unsure how to comfort her as she flinched even harder as his hand neared her. He didn't know how they were going to ake it rhtough their personal trauma to get better but he supposed he'd better give her some space for the moment. "Alright Dobby, you've got your orders. Don't worry about getting much food at the moment just what you can carry and don't forget to get some food for yourself and Winky. Then the Apothecary's okay?"

"Yes Master Harry Potter sir!" Harry got the feeling there was a salute in there somewhere as the elf vanished with a muted crack.

"Why aren't you two drinking those potions?" he demaded as he truned back to his friends.

"What about you Harry. You need something as well." Fred pointed out.

"I'm not the one recovering after a brute force healing. In fact I'm in pretty good shape all things considered. Now drink the damned potions or I'll hold you down and pour the bloody thing down your throat." Harry growled.

"You and what army Potter?"

"Well if you're going to be like that then you can be assured I'll be assisting him."

"Et tu Brutus?"

"Dunno about this Brutus fellow but if needs must."

"That's not fair Forge. You know I can't fight you."

"Who said anything about fair? I'd just rather not see you on this side of the mortal coil for a long time okay?" George looked unusually solemn as he finished speaking and faded from view a little to emphasise just what he meant. "So drink the damn potion brother dear or Harry will be the least of your worries."

"Okay, okay keep your hair on." Fred grabbed one of the potions off of the coffee table where he'd been working on identifying them and popped the lid quickly, brought it to his lips and quaffed the contents in one go with only a slight grimace at the pungent odor that assailed his nose.

"Now one of the pain potions."

"Yes mommy," he smirked as George scowled at him. Fortunately he didn't argue this time and just downed the potion. Harry in the meantime had grabbed one of the potions and handed it to Hermione who didn't argue with him at all as she drank it and then the pain potion that followed it. After all he'd only healed the major damage and left the small stuff like bruising and sore muscles to natural healing. That was all the potions they'd just drunk were good for really and they'd be the best help for any of them could hope for, for a little while.

The pain must have been the only thing keeping Hermione conscious as with a sigh of relief she slumped and Harry could tell she was asleep almost before he'd finished laying her back onto couch she'd occupied earlier. Fred was made of sterner stuff it seemed as he stayed awake for a good ten minutes after Dobby deposited several bowls of food on the table before disappearing once more.

Fred and George looked down into the bowls with a look of horror on their faces.

"Porridge? How could he bring porridge?"

"I don't know what you're whining about, it's not like you have to eat it."

Harry tuned the twins out for a moment while he placed a warming charm on Hermione's food, and then one on the twins since it might be a while till Fred got around to eating it. Not that he could blame them, porridge without any kind of condiment was horribly bland and glutinous. The only things going for it was that it was warm and filling, oh and bland enough that it didn't cause his stomach to rebel and have the effects of eating it negated when he threw it up again. A point he was quick to share with the twins.

"Well I suppose there is that," Fred admitted with a sniff, "But surely he could have at least brought some sugar and cream." Everyone stopped speaking for a moment as a small blur entered the room and deposited a small bowl and pitcher on the table before vanishing with another muted pop.

"Damn! Just how good is his hearing?"

"Dunno but he could hear me from Hogwarts and that's nearly three hundred miles away. Not to mention the fact that we weren't bonded then. Say, just a thought but why don't we have him get us a copy of the prophet so we can find out what's happening." Dobby didn't materialize immediately like he'd thought the elf would but it wasn't more than a couple of minutes before there was a small stack of brochures resting on the table before them. Off to one side was a stack of newspapers in chronological order dating from the day that he'd defeated the Dark Lord.

"Um Dobby? Not that I mind or anything but why all the newspapers?"

"Dobby is knowing that youse is wanting to know what is happening since you is going to Azkaban so Dobby is getting the papers before you is asking for them," Dobby looked up at him with wide eyes hoping that he'd done the right thing.

"That's great Dobby you saved me from sending you out again. Where did you get them though?" Harry asked confused since he couldn't really see anyone choosing to keep ten weeks worth of the Prophet for any reason.

"Dobby is such a bad elfs he is," Harry reached over and grabbed Dobby's wrists as he tried to wrench his ear in self-punishment.

"Don't do that Dobby, I don't ever want to see you try that again. You're not to punish yourself or anyone else are we clear?" The house elf nodded shakily. "Good, now tell me what you did."

"Dobby isn't finding any papers except for todays. But he is thinking he might know where to find them and he was right. I is having to break into the Prophets office and stealing them from them," the elf admitted ashamedly.

"That's it? You broke into the Prophet? Did you trash the place Dobby?"

"Oh no Master Harry Potter sir, Dobby would never do that!"

"Pity, I would have liked to have seen that," Harry chuckled at the thought for a second before the seriousness of their situation reasserted itself.

"Would you like me to go back Harry Potter sir? I could be doing it for you very easily." Dobby stated fiercely, he hadn't missed the angry undertone in his master voice.

"Not right now Dobby there's too much else to do. Besides I've got an idea I'd like to think about. Why don't you look after Winky for a while until we need you for something?"

"Master Potter is too kind to Dobby. He's is such a great wizards he is. I is always telling Winky so but she didn't believe me. Now she is having to…..Once she is waking," the excited elf finished lamely before going off to make sure Winky was alright.

"If his great and mightiness wouldn't mind coming over here for a moment I think he might want to read this." Harry looked up a little startled at the grim expression on the usually ebullient Weasley's face.

"What is it Fred?"

"Just read it," he said as he flipped the latest edition of the Prophet around so Harry could read it.

**DARK LORD ATTEMPTS TO FLEE RIGHTEOUS IMPRISONMENT**

**Early this morning the Prophet received a communiqué from the Minister for Magics office with instructions to print it in its entirety.**

**In what should be a time of rejoicing it is with great sorrow that I Rufus Scrimgour, acting Minister for Magic must inform the public that Harry Potter and his minions attempted to flee their rightful imprisonment in the early hours of this morning. Hermione Granger and Fred Weasley who had been convicted of aiding and abetting a known dark lord broke out of their cells using the darkest of arts to overcome their magically suppressed cells.**

**It is believed that they then moved to the cell of the infamous Harry Potter, supposed saviour of the wizarding world and freed him from the heaviest anti-magic wards that this ministry had ever created.**

**Unfortunately the silent alarms on the high security wing were tripped when they did so and the eleven man auror team that was despatched to recapture them came under heavy attack from unknown assailants. Their commanders lost track of them when they bravely battled their way into the high security wing of Azkaban. Ten minutes later, with the most stringent lockdown of the prison in recent history in place the Dark Lord and his minions attempted to flee only to be denied access to any means of escape. It is believed that the three escapes were attempting to swim to the mainland when they dove into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic at 3:47 this morning. In forty foot waves and temperatures approaching -10oC there was no hope of escape as the prisons anti apparition wards extend far beyond where any human no matter how evil they be could hope to swim.**

**No bodies have yet been found, though the auror captain on site has stated it is unlikely that their bodies will wash up on the mainland; in seas like this it is much more likely they have sunk into the depths of the ocean never to be seen again.**

**It is with heavy heart that I report to the people that the auror squad sent to investigate the escape found the bodies of all eleven aurors on the high security detail just inside the prison wing. The families of the fallen have asked for their privacy to be respected in their time of sorrow. To that end the Ministry of Magic has offered to assist in making funeral arrangements for those brave souls and to keep the press at bay.**

**Furthermore I as acting minister declare that we shall hunt down the Dark Lords followers and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. That is my pledge to the people in these uncertain times.**

**Yours in Faith**

**Rufus Scrimgour esq.,**

**Acting Minister for Magic.**

**We here at the Prophet are shocked and appalled at the events of this early morn. We will of course keep our readers informed of any developments as our reporters bring them to light. We futher wish the families of the fallen well in their time of bereavement**.

Harry wasn't sure he'd read the front page article right and had to go over it again even though it was pretty clear. His brain just ceased to be able to process it when he got to the notice for the aurors funerals. He knew for a fact that they hadn't really injured any of the prison guards who'd attempted to stop them from escaping.

"Those evil fuckers!" Hary raged as he threw the rag across the room and watched as the sheets of paper exploded in all directions.

"Hey calm down mate. It doesn't actually say that anyone's dead, it just implies it. The fact that the ministers not releasing a list of names almost proves it. Respecting the wishes of the families my arse."

Harry didn't take long to calm down as he thought about that. It made perfect sense as far as he could tell. If the ministry had a list of names they'd have splashed them across the front page while lauding them as heroes regardless of the families wishes with the possibility of posthumous medals for their various acts of bravery.

Damnit, Fred was right, oh and Hermione was awake again as she glared at him while clutching her head.

"Before you yell at me Hermione I think you'd better read this," he reached out and summoned the front page before shoving it into her unresisting hands. Needing to release some of the tension he was feeling he began to pace the room. He discovered in short order that the room would only accommodate seven angry paces before he had to turn and stalk back the other way. It was on his fifth circuit that he tripped over the unexpected pile of papers that appeared in the middle of the room.

"Dobby!"

"Master Potter is calling sir?" the elf enquired as he looked up from his position on the other side of the room where he'd been watching the steady rise and fall of Winky's chest to reassure himself that she was fine and well on her way to recovering..

"Uh, nothing. Just go back to what you were doing," Harry muttered at the confused house-elf. Looking back to see what he'd tripped on he discovered a much smaller pile of newspapers, this time of the Quibbler which was a weekly paper as opposed to the Prophet which was a daily.

"What the hell?"

"Why don't you read the note Harry?" Harry turned and spotted the note that Hermione had indicated though how he'd missed the bright pink post-it note he'd never know. Carefully removing the sticky note from the paper he started to read.

**Dear, 'The Dark Lord' Harry Potter.**

**It is with great pride that the new management at the Quibbler announce you as the winner of an annual subscription to our new hard hitting political investigative journal. In the unlikely event that you have been unlawfully imprisoned and are only just receiving your first copies we would like you to note that we have supplied the last ten back issues of our paper so that you may plot dark revenge without fear that you have missed an opportunity to repay any sense of betrayal you currently feel.**

**Your servant**

**Dark minionette.**

/ To be continued…. \

A/N- Hi everybody! I hope you're al enjoyed the latest installment of 'Hell hath no fury' Please let me know what you think so far in a review or a PM. I recently learned that I've had unsigned reviews disabled and have rectified that so feel free to use it.

In the next few chapters things shall be heating up quite a bit as the preparation stages pass so keep your eyes peeled for that.


	7. Chapter 7

Hell hath no fury

Hell hath no fury

Chapter 7

Disclaimer – Ah to hell with it, I just realized I don't own HP and thus I'm not getting paid for this gig. Oh well, sucks to be me.

A/N – Hermione's recovery, while an important thing isn't a main focus of this story. Revenge on certain people won't 'fix' her right up and people shouldn't expect it to. There are far too many mental repercussions for a highly intelligent control freak like Hermione who's been raped to cover in a story like this and if the reader really wants to know about that kind of stuff there are psychology books that have much better information than I do.

Hermione's recovery and revenge will be a behind the scenes kind of thing, you can assume it's happening but unless it effects the main plot, such as revenge on Ron for several different things then I'm not going to shove it in your face. The main character is Harry with his posse being a close second.

/ On with the story \

Harry chuckled as he reread the note again, there was only one person who could write a note like that in his estimation and he was kind of happy that she seemed to be prospering. One thing that confused him though was, 'Just when did anyone consider the Quibbler to be a hard hitting political journal?' The last thing he'd heard the paper had been reporting sightings of Crumple Horned Snorkacks and offering advice on what to do if Stubby Boardman should show up for tea. The most political thing they'd printed to date as far as he knew was the fact that Cornelius Fudge was training an army of Heliopaths in the department of mysteries so that he could take over the world or some such nonsense.

The only reason he knew that much was that he'd heard Hermione ranting about the idiocy of the article. I mean really of all the ludicrous things!

Harry snorted again as he wondered why Hermione, who had stated on numerous occasions that the Quibbler was so unbelievable that it should never be printed was still reading it after five years. He could still get a rise out of her on any issue if he said it came from that paper. So just why she would read a paper that annoyed her so greatly he'd never understand.

Talking of the Quibbler he could do with a good laugh himself since things had been rather grim for the last little while, like say the last seventeen years of his life. No, hold on, there might have been some good times before Voldemort killed his parents but since he didn't personally remember it, it probably didn't count. Picking up the top copy he prepared to read the normal tripe they reported on, even if it was fictitious it was certainly fun to read the editors personal conspiracy theories.

It was a complete surprise when a couple of minutes later his fists tightened on the newspaper threatening to tear it. Hard hitting was certainly a fairly descriptive term for this paper.

**The Quibbler**

_**Special Harry Potter Edition**_

**Only 1 issue in print!**

It is with great pleasure that the Quibbler reports that early this morning, after ten weeks of being wrongfully imprisoned the hero and saviour of the wizarding world and his two friends have succeeded in being the second, third and fourth persons in history to escape the infamous wizarding prison of Azkaban. **For information on the first turn to page 6**

In further news, the self serving scoundrel, Rufus Scrimgour in an effort to bolster his bid for making his temporary position as 'Acting' Minister of Magic permanent has severely distorted events surrounding the greatest escape in the recent history of magic. **Ariticle continued on page 2-5. For the greatest escape in all of magical history, turn to page 6. **

**Ministry issues statement **

**On cost of your life**

Many readers would know that ten weeks ago the ministry of magic sent aurors to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in what they claim was an attempt to bolster the final defence of the most important magical school in the wizarding world. It was in fact an attempt to appear as other than the complete incompetents they had shown themselves to be over the previous three years.

Upon arriving at the site of battle, several hours late one might add. The aurors acting on direct orders from the acting minister himself proceeded to arrest anyone who was even remotely suspected of being a Death Eater. This number must have included Harry Potter since they also arrested him and sent him to Azkaban without trial. The other thirty seven people arrested were remanded to Ministry holding cells awaiting trial.

The very next day all thirty seven suspected Death Eaters were acquitted of all charges against them and released. The average time the Wizengamot took to deliberate on their verdict was six minutes. We at the Quibbler believe that deliberation only took that long because it takes the average Death Eater that long to think of numbers of galleons greater than ten, and it wouldn't take that long if they were allowed to remove their shoes.

Taking into account the combined death toll caused by the thirty-seven people acquitted, both during Voldemort' first and second rise the Quibbler has calculated just how much the life of our readers are actually worth.

If you're a muggle and reading this article, congratulations on successfully breaking the Statute of secrecy, and know that according to our ministry your life isn't worth two knuts. A harsh assessment, but apparently true if evidence uncovered by our reporters is to be believed.

Squibs fared a little better on a buyers market at a silver sickle and seven knuts. Muggleborn witches and wizards should insure their lives for seven galleons and a handful of small change while halfbloods are worth a whopping one hundred and sixteen galleons. Purebloods labelled as blood-traitors are worth seven hundred and thirty two galleons. Prices varied in several cases where age became a factor, younger victims saw an increase of up to three hundred percent in the cost of the bribe to shrug off their deaths depending on how young they were.

Pureblood who espouse the blood supremacy line should be glad to know they're priceless(or worthless depending on interpretation) since none of them were actually killed in any of the fighting. **For complete statistics on death tolls of the first and second rise of Voldemort and who did what, turn to page 5, for a complete list of bribes paid to Ministry officials and the reasons for them turn to pages 5-22. For 10 reasons why Harry Potter should hate the Prophet turn to page 24**

The creamy white paper threatened to drop through suddenly nerveless fingers as Harry stared at the print in complete disbelief. He couldn't stop reading now as he continued to scan the pages. The articles were completely blunt and entirely accurate as far as he could tell, it covered every single thing that he and his friends had done over the last ten weeks. From the moment he'd been captured to the present instant, including the fact of what he was currently feeling as he read this article. He had to admit it was hard hitting since he was feeling pole-axed, and if it had been a normal issue of the Quibbler released to the public then there would be a public outcry that would level the Ministry.

Of course he already intended to do that at some point so it was moot so far as he was concerned but now he had so many more reasons than ever before. The bribes alone gave him more than enough reason to want to seek out the ministry and bring the corrupt politicians to justice.

Lucius Malfoy had been the most active briber according to the statistics, a not too surprising iota of information since Hermione conjectured that the Malfoy Patriarch was Voldemort's main supporter and most visible asset in the ministry since he was pretty much untouchable. If the information was accurate then he'd had dirt on every man and his dog since he'd bribed them at some point for reasons that ranged from trivial up to exonerating one of his cohorts for crimes as heinous as murder, torture and rape, not necessarily in that order. If his mathematics were right then the Malfoy's had probably paid out thirty or forty million galleons over the last three decades which was a lot of money in anyone's language.

Page 23 was great as far as Harry was concerned since he hadn't known there were so many mercenary groups for a rich wizard to hire. There were also international owl-order companies for almost anything his heart could desire and a few things he'd never even considered before. They didn't have any money at the moment but he would keep them in mind for a later date.

Ten reasons to hate the Prophet turned out to be a list of ten names, the most prominent shareholders in the company. It shouldn't really have been too much of a shock just how many of his major enemies were on that list. Nope, the true shock would have to be that Albus Dumbledore had been the majority shareholder up until his death the prior year with over a forty percent share in the company. Damn! One thing he did note was that the largest bloc of shares that could be formed against the aged wizard was roughly thirty six percent and thus if Albus had truly wanted, he could have dictated the Prophets articles at any point. The paper crumpled in his hands as his emotions overcame him once more. He was just short of pulling his hair out he was so distraught at the news, instead he chose to go outside and vent once more.

It'd only been several hours since he'd last been outside and feeling the need to vent. That time he'd chosen to practice his wandless casting by repeating the bludgeoning spell over and over again until he didn't feel the need to. When his target finally gave up to the damage he inflicted on it he'd chosen another. All in all it'd taken an hour for him to run out of steam that time. He didn't think casting the bludgeoning hex was going to cut it this time. To put it simply he wanted to blow shit up, and in the absence of any of the people named in the 'Special Edition' of the Quibbler he'd have to settle for trees.

"AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrhrhhh!!" Which it turns out was the sound an extremely frustrated young man makes when someone interrupts his perfectly well earned need to vent.

"Um Harry? Are you alright?" It was probably a lucky thing that the thoughts currently running through the mind of one Harry Potter couldn't be read. At least not by George, he was pretty sure that Hermione was a passable legilimens since she'd been the one to finally teach him to shield his mind.

"Is that a rhetorical question? Because if it isn't I swear I'm going to look up some of those exorcism rituals we were talking about earlier." Later on he'd be ashamed but for right now he just couldn't care less if he hurt someone's feeling. He really wanted to hurt someone, anyone, at this stage and the fact that he couldn't do it to people who desperately deserved it was just another irritant that was wearing on his last nerve.

"Why yes Harry it was, and um sorry to bother you but I think you should come back inside now," George wasn't sure exactly why he was so nervous but he backed halfway through the wall in case he needed to make a hasty retreat. Being threatened with exorcism really didn't worry him though since his brother had threatened him with it at least a dozen times since they'd arrived here, and in a frightfully cheery voice too it might be added. Of course he was pretty sure Gred was just joshing with him whereas he wasn't entirely sure about Harry. It was probably the snarl in his voice as he turned around that gave a good indication that it probably wasn't a good idea to irritate Harry at the moment.

"Alright, I'll be in, in a minute," was the growled answer to his request that Harry return to the cabin. Shoulders shaking as he attempted to hold his emotions inside Harry glared out at the tranquil scenery with murderous green eyes and for the first time he was wishing that Albus Dumbledore was in front of him for a different reason than that the magical world needed his sage advice.

Stalking back inside Harry closed the door and turned to face the three wary occupants in the room. They were wary because anyone as angry a Harry currently appeared shouldn't be closing doors that quietly. He should be stomping around and maybe swearing and cursing the day such and such happened or so and so had been born. Instead he appeared cool, calm and altogether too collected and it had the three of them waiting for the lightning to strike and herald the coming of amageddon.

"Alright. What's so damn important that I don't get to blow up some trees?"

"Well we've gone over most of the Prophets for the last couple of weeks and don't really have anything you wouldn't expect from them. Rehashing fifth years articles about how crazy you are and going further to speculate on your innate evilness. Um," Fred swallowed at Harry's glare that stated 'You called me back in for this?', "One thing you really need to see is the list of witches and wizards wanted by the ministry for questioning. Most of the DA is on it along with their families and from what I can tell a fair number of allies of Scrimgours political enemies are on here as well. That was in the latest edition so if we act soon we might be able to get some of them to safety. I don't know what the Minister wants with them but I'd bet it won't be anything that's good for them." He relaxed a little when he saw Harry begin to settle, apparently Harry thought that was a good piece of information and worth interrupting his 'Blow shit up' time.

"Right, I'll just get Hedwig….to…." Harry trailed off as he remembered his arrest and what had happened after it. Hedwig seeing her human being arrested had done what any owl would have done in her situation and that was to attack his captors. That was when Dawlish, the Minister's personal auror guard had shown up. Harry had thought the man was dead, at least he'd seen a pretty convincing scene where the unlucky sod had been hit with so many spells that he'd be unlucky if he had lived. Now here he was both hale and hearty and proving just how lucky he was since Harry was currently wearing magical suppression cuffs and couldn't react the way he wanted to as he was forced to watch the auror firing reductor curses at Hedwig. The owl was proving to be a wily target though and he'd missed a few times before he'd accelerated his casting rate. Hedwig didn't really stand a chance and had known it as soon as the first spell headed her way, thus she was torn between trying to save her human or to escape so that she would survive. It became a moot point a few seconds later when one of the reductor's finally struck her wing and it disappeared in a fine red mist. He hadn't wasted anytime in capitalizing on it either as he'd walked over and fired the last spell at point black range killing her instantly.

Harry had nearly escaped his custodians at that point, not that Dawlish seemed to care. Not if the expression on his face meant anything, in fact it seemed that he was hoping Harry would slip the leash and attack him. When the two aurors holding him had regained enough control that it was obvious Harry wasn't going to be able to he'd sneered and cast a bludgeoning hex followed by an over powered stunner into Harry's chest. The combination had smashed him loose from the auror team and also disabled him at the same time.

Harry could feel the tears running down his face as he remembered the death of one of his best friends and wondered how he could have forgotten her. Not that he really had it was just that his mind seemed to be covering things up to protect him from anymore pain. Harry would have preferred the pain to this since it was still raw and Dawlish soared to a place very near the top of his 'Must die' list. The man would find that he might have been lucky against death eaters but he was going to have to deal with an angry Harry very shortly and no one could be that lucky.

That'd have to wait though, he had to act now and save as many people as he could before the minister was able to get rid of them. "Fred, why don't you get Dobby to get us some writing materials and send notes to everyone on that list telling them to go into hiding or maybe find somewhere where we can meet if we know them so that they can join us." He watched for a moment as Fred hurried to do his biding, it gave him a little thrill to finally be the person in control and not someone else who only thought they knew Harry.

"Hermione I've got something for you to work on as well. I have a rune array that I want you to figure out for me. It's basically how I'm able to do wandless magic so I want to create it so that you guys can train as well." Reaching over he grabbed one of the Quibblers and began writing what he thought the runic array looked like with a conjured pen. Hopefully Fred would have some real writing materials for them shortly because the conjured ink wouldn't last very long. Not that Hermione would need it once she had a little time to examine what he'd written. He left her after he got bored with watching her glare at the runes as if they were offering personal insult to her. He had a few things to think about and besides he still hadn't read through the Quibblers back issues. The one he'd read had been designed just for him and he was wondering what the others that were printed for the general public were like.

Besides, he still really wanted to blow something up and reading might take his mind off of that.

One thing he noted was that the first issue he'd been sent had a circulation number just like the 'Special Edition' had, though the number was just over a thousand this time. He was kind of surprised at that, but more so when he had finally waded through the weekly paper that covered just about everything that had been accomplished by any of the department heads, the minister or anyone else that had done something particularly noteworthy, either good or bad. The fact that Umbridge and several other high ranking officials had received bribes to write particularly vicious anti-muggle and magical creature laws wasn't too surprising for Harry. The fact that one of them had been Percy Weasley had. His mother would be so proud of her son, he was proving that the apple hadn't fallen too far from the bigoted racist tree after all.

Once he'd finished with the first weeks issue he moved on to the next one, a logical progression one might think but others wouldn't agree. The twins were quite comfortable jumping around reading bits here and there and building a whole that way. They were intuitive in the way they handled things, and they were usually right when they said something. Hermione and by extension Harry since he was using her as a role model liked to build up a picture in chronological order. It was neither superior nor inferior to the way the twins did it but it still worked for her. Something Harry noticed about the second issue was the increased circulation the paper was doing.

It seemed that Luna had trebled the number of papers she printed, a quick examination of the other papers he'd been sent showed that it wasn't just a fluke either since the number grew exponentially. By the tenth issue the number printed was just over a hundred thousand and at a sickle an issue that was a lot of money. He wondered just who was buying it though since he didn't believe there were that many politically savvy wizards or witches out there.

He was surprised no one in the ministry had shut the Quibbler down. It'd be a misuse of power to do so but as far as he'd seen the ministry really didn't care about such niceties as following the laws that they expected the rest of the wizarding world to follow.

Choosing to forgo further speculation about what the ministry intended to do about the Quibbler Harry continued to read the articles, and made occasional notes of issue and page number when he found something worthy of his attention. Such as the statistics on how many wizards and witches there currently were in the country and percentages of muggleborn, half-bloods and pure-bloods. If the article was correct then pure-bloods currently made up about eight percent of the magical population of Britain. That was still a substantial number when you consider that there were just shy of three hundred thousand wizards and witches in the country.

It went on to show percentages of which lineage held high paying positions and it wasn't surprising when he found that nearly one hundred percent of the positions were filled by pure-blood wizards and witches. Half bloods tended to get middle management to menial jobs and muggle-born no matter how skilled they were, were lucky to be able to find employment in magical Britain at all. Most graduates from Hogwarts or any of the other smaller less prestigious institutions of learning either ended up leaving the country to find employment in the magical world or spent several years catching up on their muggle educations so they could at least flip burgers for a living.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been reading but an explosive shout of frustration drew his attention across the room to his bushy haired friend.

Looking over he was just in time to see Hermione ball up the parchment she'd been working on and launch it across the room where it bounced off the mantelpiece and rolled across the floor.

"You alright Hermione?" Harry asked softly, not wanting to draw her ire to himself.

"No I'm not! Damn effing runic array! Are you sure you got it right? No, of course not because if you'd got it right it'd have made sense. Sure you got the magic draining part of it right, but the rest is just a mess. I thought it needed another rune to make it stable, but the only ones that fit are Ortis or Rho. Rho was the best fit but it would have turned everyone within a hundred metres into chickens and depending on the ambient magic being drained from the area it would have lasted up to an hour. Hardly useful at all. Ortis on the other hand might actually prove useful but we'd have to test that one out. But chickens? Honestly Harry who could find a use for that?"

For his part Harry was just staring at his usually placid friend, well alright she wasn't actually that placid but there were certain things she wouldn't do. Swearing was definitely right at the top of that list. Besides he couldn't believe she hadn't seen the application for a rune cluster like that.

Fred and George weren't nearly as reticent.

"Well we could for a start Mione!"

"Most indubitably brother dear," George said as he floated over to the crumpled parchment and lifted it reverently, it took a moment for the poltergeist to straighten out the text and begin to read it before he took on a perplexed.

Harry would probably ask what was wrong with George later after he'd sorted out Fred and Hermione's training in wandless magic. First of all though he needed to know how to make a magical artefact that could use the rune cluster he'd been subjected to while in prison.

"Hermione, did you figure out the rune cluster?"

"Of course I did Harry. I'm not sure how you managed to get four out of ten runes wrong but…"

"Well it's not like I took ancient runes or anything is it?" he asked defensively. "I was trying to draw them from memory."

"Well that explains it I suppose." Harry winced as she threw aspersions on his allegedly faulty memory.

"So how does it work?"

"Well it's rather a simple cluster. Just what you'd expect from something with only ten runes in it, nonetheless it is extremely effective for what it's meant for. You see the first two runes here? Well they tell the cluster what it is to link to. In this case Rho, which is animal, and Griz which means touch. So basically this cluster will link to any animal it happens to be touching." She looked up from the sheet of parchment she'd grabbed that had the rune array written in large script across the top.

"So why isn't that rune cluster draining you if you're touching it?" Harry almost shrank from the condescending look his friend was giving him.

"Well it's obvious you didn't take runes or you'd know that this isn't an activated rune cluster. It needs to be activated in some way before it'll work. In this case it requires blood, preferably from the animal that it's linked to but any would do in a pinch. The next three runes are the whole point of the rune cluster in this instance. It consists of three null or void runes," Hermione continued.

"And what do they do?"

"Simplified, they act as a sink for some kind of energy. Heat or electricity, magic it doesn't matter, it'll drain whatever energy it comes into contact with. The more runes the stronger the drain. Three runes like this attached to a wizard would likely kill them, it'd drain their magic too fast and they'd never be able to recover before it sucked all the energy out of them. It would kill them in seconds. The guards were probably very disappointed when you didn't die in a tragic accident, but then they missed what it really meant when it wasn't able to drain you dry."

"What?"

"It means Harry that you're a really powerful wizard. Stronger than Dumbledore or Voldemort if I were to make a guess." Fred looked up from the parchment he and his brother had been poring over to answer.

"It also means that you've gotten stronger….That's what you wanted this for isn't it? You wanted to put one of these rune clusters on us and make us stronger." It wasn't a question the way she said it.

"Well yeah, but that was before you told me it'd kill you."

"Harry it doesn't need to have three void runes, you'd only need to have one on each ring…." Hermione paused as a thought crossed her mind. "Harry? You had two manacles on didn't you?"

"Well yeah," Harry admitted.

"That means you had a total of six void runes on you at one time. My god, they really were trying to kill you. When it didn't work immediately they probably thought it would only be a matter of time before they managed to drain your magic and life energy out of you. It also explains why you felt so weak for the first few weeks after they put you in Azkaban. You weren't sick, you were literally being drained of your life."

"That doesn't make any sense, if they wanted to kill me they could have just done it."

"Well yes, but they don't want to just kill you Harry. People would ask too many questions, even if they think you might have been the next dark lord. But if a young auror made a mistake in the number of void runes and you die then it's not an execution, it's a tragic accident and they can absolve themselves that way. They could say that they fully intended to give you a fair trial and it was unfortunate that you didn't have a chance to clear your good name."

"Let's be honest Hermione, they could say the sky is pink with purple polka dots and if they print it in the Prophet the sheeple would believe it," Harry said scornfully. Hermione shrugged quite willing to concede the point.

"True. You know we're going to have to do something about that eventually?"

"I say we burn it to the ground," George interjected from the corner where he and his brother will still looking at the runic array Hermione had written on the parchment.

"That has potential brother, but what if we got them to print a special edition explaining that the people are a bunch of idiots and why. We could test the hypothesis that the people would believe anything if it's printed in the Prophet and then burn their printing presses to the ground."

"It's certainly got potential, the only problem I can see is none of us have the knowledge to run a magical printing machine," Hermione cautioned the twins. Besides she was a little busy revising the rune cluster Harry said they needed. She'd just had an idea to change the focus of the rune cluster and add in several switches to turn it on or off at will and wouldn't have time to deal with whatever idea the twins had just come up with.

Fred and George weren't listening to her though or at least not properly and they weren't ready to give up on their idea yet either.

"Who do we know who can run a magical printer Forge?"

"You don't mean….?" George said with a breathless tone that Harry found kind of amusing as he watched Fred stand up and strike an earnest pose that he probably thought looked heroic or something. Raising a hand in the air Fred intoned.

"Why yes I do. We need to call the Dark Minionette!" He finished his pompous little speech with a flourish.

A second later a figure dressed in a dark cloak aparated into the space just in front of Fred who reacted badly as he really wasn't expecting anyone to just appear as if he'd summoned them. He let out a startled scream and promptly backed over his chair unsuccessfully it seemed as he crashed to the floor in a heap. George didn't fare much better but found it easier to back through his chair before he froze with a gob-smacked expression. Harry would later swear that George was blushing but at this point he was preparing to blast whoever had just appeared in their secret hide out. That was before he recognized the ash blonde hair that trailed down the figures back.

"Luna?"

"Yes My Dark Lord it is I, the Dark Minxette!" she said without turning around.

"Huh? I thought you were the Dark Minionette?"

"I was but that was before I found this outfit," she said as she twirled to face him, the cloak that came to about mid thigh on the girl flared outwards as it filled with air and exposed the 'outfit' she was wearing for his full view but mainly it exposed about ninety-five percent of her body. It only took a second for Harry to turn a bright red in embarrassment at his body's reaction. It was certainly different than anything he'd ever seen her wearing, or anyone else for that matter. At first he'd thought it was one of those barely there bikinis he'd seen on the television. Then he realized it was made of leather that didn't so much hug, as sculpt her body in explicit detail. In the opinion of any red blooded male it made for a spectacular display on a seventeen year old Luna, it certainly showed more skin than any of the males here were used to seeing.

"Damn it Luna, put some clothes on!" Hermione yelled at the normally ditzy blonde. It was a bit of a shock to realize that the blonde standing before them wasn't the same vapid girl they'd known back in Hogwarts and she was wondering if this was indeed the same girl.

"I did, Hermione," she gestured at her 'bikini' that reflected the limited light given from the oil lamps around the room and then on to the high heeled boots that moulded her calves in loving detail. There was no way that she'd put this outfit on the traditional way, there had to have been some kind of magic involved. "And besides, I think the boys like it. Alright if you insist," she said to a now glaring Hermione. Pulling something from the cloak she placed it on the ground and then tapped it with her wand to reveal that she'd been carrying a shrunken trunk. Flipping open the lid she tapped the trunk once more and a pole extended out of the now four foot long and three foot wide trunk. Luna grasped the pole and slid out of sight.

It didn't take long for a curios George(No pun intended) to float over and peek over the edge, he really wasn't expecting to see anything so it was with some surprise that he stumbled away a moment later with a glazed expression on his face.

A minute later Luna rose from her trunk like she was standing on an elevator or something dressed in a much more normal dress in Ravenclaw colours.

"Well you shouldn't look if you're not prepared to like what you see George," she said as she stared at the poltergeist.

"Never said I didn't like Luna, just wish I'd have known while I was still alive," George admitted softly.

"Aah, isn't he sweet?"

"Why are you here Luna?" Harry asked quickly to see if he could get some sensible information before they went off on anymore tangents tonight.

"Well once upon a time, nearly eighteen years ago, my mummy and daddy were feeling a little frisky…"

"That's not what I meant Luna, I meant…well you know what I meant. Does every man and his dog know we're here?"

"Well possibly the dogs Harry but if they do they're not telling anyone. As to why I'm here, well I've been waiting for one of you to call me since about six' o'clock. Of course I've been preparing to come here for over a year and it was getting really tiresome waiting. Oh and Harry? When you make those rings for you three, could you make a set for me?"

"Uh, sure," Harry stammered as he tried to process what she'd just said, "Hey, how'd you know about the rings? We've only just started talking about them."

"Oh I've known about them for a long time, I just had to wait for you to think them up."

"How?" Hermione wanted to know, she had a suspicion and wanted it confirmed.

"I thought you knew Hermione. Well I suppose you really couldn't since we don't try to advertise our gifts. You see my mother, Roslyn Dunwich was a seer. Xenophillus Lovegood, that's my father by the way was also a seer and he was cursed with mage sight."

Hermione blinked at that, 'Okay so that's why…' her thoughts trailed off as the last statement caught up with her. "Hold on, how can you consider having mage sight when everyone wants to develop it if they can?"

"It's alright if you have mage sight, it's just not so good if mage sight has you. Father didn't consider it a curse really but in truth it was. In the sense that he couldn't turn it off. Imagine having mage sight twenty-four seven, with your eyes open or closed it didn't matter. He learned to sleep through the mage sight, mainly due to exhaustion. He could see the magic but he could also see creatures of magic."

"So you're like Trelawny?"

"I'm nothing like that fraud, and besides she's not a seer. She's an oracle, a weak one at that, or you might call her a prophet I suppose since most of them are mad when they're not actually making prophecies."

"There's a difference?"

"Silly, of course there is. What are they teaching in schools these days? A prophet is like a poorly tuned radio, it tunes into a signal but it's mostly static with a very few things being understandable. An oracle has better reception and maybe a little control over what they 'see' but they can't report it in a straightforward manner. Like if they foresaw a jail break they wouldn't say that, they'd couch it in poetic terms like, 'The caged bird shall fly free' It's a very iffy kind of prediction and can be misinterpreted quite easily as it isn't very specific. Another problem they have is that their predictions are often self fulfilling if a person involved hears it. The caged bird might not be thinking of flying the coop until they hear the prophecy, but afterwards might think they can actually do it. Do you see?" She waited for everyone to answer. "A seer on the other hand can see many futures, literally thousands of them. One for every important decision that is made. Some see less, some see more. Right now I could tell you a hundred different things you could do, a hundred different futures with different ending to every one of them. The problem is that my sight is my own, I can only see how my decisions will effect the future and how you'll react within each of my realities. When you make a decision it will effect my realities and they will either expand into a true reality or whither as the possibility of that future disappears. It's really complex and if you think about it too hard you'll probably give yourself a migraine. I'll just say that it is paradoxical and leave it at that."

"Don't take this the wrong way Luna, but you seem different than when you were in school." Harry wasn't sure if he'd insult her with that kind of statement but the Luna he knew probably wouldn't have been offended. She'd always seemed to bypass the true intent of other peoples gibes against her not that he was intending to insult her.

"Hmm," she agreed, "That was before I reached my Matura Magicka at sixteen and a half. Before that I didn't have the magical or mental focus to be able to differentiate between this reality and the myriad of other possible realities. Throw in my mage sight and you can only just begin to imagine how confusing it could be."

"So is that where Nargles and such come from?"

"Heavens no. Hermione, you may know a lot but you don't know everything. I know different things than you do, but that doesn't make them any less real. There are three types of creature in this world though the vast majority of wizards only think there are two. The first are mundane creatures, the muggles of the animal kingdom, then there are magical creatures and lastly there are creatures of magic."

"Aren't those last two the same thing?"

"No. Magical creatures are of flesh and blood just like us. Creatures of magic are literally that, their bodies are made up of magic, it isn't a part of them, it is them. They tend to feed on ambient magic that is given off by magical plants, though some have adapted to life around wizards and can be used for various rituals as guides or messengers. Don't worry about it Hermione, you'll be able to see them one day too, I'm sure of it. That day won't be for a while, and definitely not if we don't live long enough. Like Harry says, we need to get our priorities straight. Survival first, fascination later. I'll tell you guys more in the morning, but if we want to get a good day in tomorrow we'd better get some sleep now. Hermione and I will share the master bedroom. Harry there's a bed down in my chest, so you don't have to be noble and sleep on the couch if you don't want to. Though I suppose you can if you feel the need." Not bothering to say anymore she dragged an oddly unprotesting Hermione off to the bedroom.

"I'll stand guard for the night." George said as he floated towards the ceiling. "'Night guys."

"Good night George, see you in the morning Fred."

"Night Harry."

"See you in the morning Hermione, Luna," Harry called out into the darkened main bedroom.

"Good night Harry!"

"'Night John-boy!"

Harry chuckled as he slid down the pole into Luna's chest wondering just where a pureblood witch had discovered the Waltons.

/ End day 1 – To be continued….. \

A/N – All reviews are gratefully received. Gotta admit I love hearing from you guys. For those too young to remember, 'The Waltons' was an American TV show that ran from 1972 to 1981 with a pilot movie in 1971 and six or so sequel movies, 3 in 1982 and another 3 in the 90's. They had titles like, "A Waltons wedding' and 'A Waltons easter' riveting stuff, can't imagine why no one remembers them. Lol.

Next chapter will probably be some of the happenings of other characters from Harry Potter and what they're up to now. I might also do the final battle of Hogwarts if anyone wants to know how that went. Let me know what you'd like to see first. Regardless I'll be covering Luna Lovegood and what it means to be a seer, also more about runic and wandless theory.

Catch you on the flipside.

Narutoscreed.


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